X 






I LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, I 



4'>a?. - ^rang-'' »\'' '• # 



■# — ^ H^ # 

J UNITED STATES OP AMERICA. | 



SOME VIEWS 



OF 



FREEDOM AND SLxiVERY 



THE LIGHT 



3 



col 



OF THE 



m^l 



NEW JERUSALEM. 



BY RICHARD DE CHARMS. 



PHILADELPHIA: 

STEREOTYPED, FOR THE AUTHOR, BY GEORGE CHARLES, 



NO. 9 S A NSOM STREET. 



1851. 



Urdcrcd, accordinfj to Act of Covjrc^fi, in the ytar 1S51, 6y 

raCilARD PE CHARMS, 

In the Clerk's Oj/lcc of the District Court of the United States in and fur the 
Eastern Di'itrict of Pennffijlvania. 



CONTENTS, 



Page. 
Preface— Displaying The Neio Jerusalem, and its Ilcavmly Doctrine, under the fol- 
lowing heads : 5 

Of the Xew lleaTcn and the New Earth, and what is meant by tlie New Jerusalem 6 

Introduction to the Doctrine 10 

Of Good and Truth H 

Of the Will and the Understanding 13 

Of the Internal and External Man I4 

Of Love in General 16 

Of the Love of Self and the Love of the World 18 

Of Love towards the Neighbor, or Charity 21 

Of Faith 26 

Of Piety 29 

Of Conscience 31 

Of Liberty 32 

Of Merit S3 

Of Repentance, and the Remission of Sins 35 



Of Rej;fncration- 



37 



Of Temptation og 

Of r.aptism <Q 

Of the IJoly Supper ' 40 



Of the Resurrection- • • 
Of Heaven and Hell- 
Of the Church 



44 



Of the Sacred Scriptures, or the Word 44 



50 



Of Trovidence- 

Of the Lord 

Of Ecclesiastical and Civil Government- 

Some Tiews of Freedom and Slavery 53 

Chapt^ 7.— An Argument in the United States' Senate, that African Slavery is a 
Civil and Political Blessing, answered, by showing that it is a Civil, Political, Mo- 
ral, and Spiritual Evil, especially to the White Man, although it may not, in the 
case of our Southern States, be a Sin. 53 

(3) 



4 CONTENTS. 

ClmptfT 77.— TliP same suTject continued, \n an effort to show, that Plavery Ts au 
Evil to the White Man, because it debiises his Humanity, first, by developing and 
Ptrengtheuing in him an Arbitrary and Domineering Spirit, and, second, by mak- 
ing Labor disreputable among the Whites. Still, Slavery in our Southern States 
may not be Si.n ; but must be regarded as a Chronic Constitutional Disease, which 
entitles our Southern Brethren to our Kind Consideration, and imposes on us the 
Duty of Cooperation with them in gradually getting rid of it as an Hereditary Evil. 62 

Chapter TTL— From the Particular Doctrine of the New Jerusalem bearing on the 
subject before us, it is argued, that the Evil of African Slavery is a Permission of 
the Divine Providence, for the Ultimate Regeneration of the African Race, and the 
EuU Development of a Celestial Church in Africa; whereby it is seen, what is the 
TrueDuty of America in regard to the Natural Institution of Slavery, and her 
Genuine Charity to the African in the Emancipation of him from it, as well as 
what are the True Principles on which alone such Emancipation can be safely and 
securely effected. "5 

Chapter TV. — Freedom and Slavery very briefly and cursorily viewed in their 
Spiritual Aspect. 90 

Chapter T— Practical Application of the Subject— A Recapitulation, setting forth, 
in a Varied Form of Presentation, the True Nature of Freedom and Slavery, exhi- 
biting the Position of America in relation to the Countries of Europe, and indi- 
cating the Duties and Responsibilities of Americans, and especially of Members of 
the True Church, in preserving the Lil:)erties of their own Country, and in promot- 
ing the Umversal Political Good of all other Nations. ■ • • • 97 



PREFACE 



Tnis tract was originally a sermon. It Y>\as also clcllverod ns 
a discourse, in Washington Cit}^, on the 24th of February, 1850, 
before the Washington Society of the Xew Jerusalem, in view 
of the one hundred and eighteenth anniversary of Washington's 
birth. The author, having been repeatedly, and especially on 
that occasion, urged to publish it, issued proposals for that pur- 
pose, and printed an edition of seven hundred and fifty copies. 
That edition was soon exhausted. And he is now strenuously 
importuned to allow it to be reissued, in a cheaper and more 
accommodated form, for the widest possible circulation as a 
national tract. Yielding to this solicitation^ he has determined 
to remodel it, and have it stereotyped. 

As this little work may now fall into the hands of many who 
never heard of the new church called the New Jerusalem, it is 
manifestly proper that something should be premised respecting 
the character and doctrines of that church. As to its character, 
it claims to be an entirely new dispensation of christian verities. 
It is the new and true christian church, predicted by John, in 
the Apocalypse, under the figurative representations of tlie virgin 
bride, the Lamb's wife, and the holy city. Its complex doctrine 
is the internal sense of God's Word : and the unfolding of the 
truths of this sense, by the long lost, but now restored, science 
of the correspondences between natural and spiritual or earthly 
and heavenly things, constitutes the second or spiritual coming 
of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To effect this his second 
advent in these latter days, the Lord has, in mercy, deigned to 
avail himself of the instrumentality of a chosen servant, Ema- 
nuel Swedenborg. By a preternatural elevation of his under- 
standing, he illuminated the interiors of his mind with the im- 
mediate light of his own divine presence, and, by his discrote 
intromission into the spiritual world, enabled him to converse 

1* 5 



6 PREFArE. 

with anjrclH — thus to n^;ialn a knowlciJgc of the great law by 
whivh the Wcnl «.f (iod was written, to discern and to reveal, 
not unly tho exiitciice of a iicaven and a hell, but also their 
naturi' and thi-ir hiws, as well as to discover anfl make known 
ihe tnu' nature of the connectinn that exists between man's 
iKiul and his body, between the spiritual world and the natural 
worhl, Iwfwcon the Pfiiritual and the natural senses of the 8aered 
Hcri|»lure}», and between the divinity and the humanity of the 
One, Oidy. LiviuL', and True (iod. The theological system 
tbua revealed from the Lord Jesus Christ, is to be understood 
by the holy city, the New Jerusalem, now coming down from 
(JikI <»ut of heaven. — " In that d.iy shall thr-re be one Lord, 
and his name onn." rZ"ch., xiv, D.) "And this is his name 
^herehy he phall be called, JkIIOVAII OUR RICHTKOUSNESS/' 
{JvT.^ xxiii, G.) *' These things have I spoken unto you in pro- 
verbs: the tiinecometh wlien 1 shall no longer speak unto you 
in proxerbs, [or parables,] but I shall show you jtlainly of the 
father." (John, xvi, 2;').) "And he that sat upon the throne 
Bai«l, lJeh(d<i, I make all things new." ( Rev., xxi, 5.) " Surely, 
1 como (puekly. Amen. Kven so, cotne Lord Jesus." (Kev., 
xxii. lIO.) For further j)redictions of the liord's second coming, 
Bcc Matthew, xxiv, oO, HI; >L'irk, xiii, 2(5; Luke, xii, 40, aud 
xxi, 27 ; and the last chapter of Revelations throughout. 

As to the leading, fundamental, or peculiar doctrines of this 
new and true christian church, it was at first intended to present 
h"re a very brief and cursory outline of our own. But, on ma- 
ture reconsideration, it has been deemed best to give the whole 
of Kmanuel Swcdeiiborg's little work, entitled, ^^On the X>jw 
Jrrusnh in <inil its Jlrairnlt/ Doctrine, ns rciealed from Jicaven: 
to tc/iich are prrjised Some Observations concern in f/ the JVrw 
Jleaven and the Xeu^ Earth.'' However, his voluminous refe- 
rences to the ArcaJia Codestia and his other larger works, are 
omitted, so as to bring the remaining matter of that work into 
as small a comjtass as jjossible : and it is imagined that a better 
tract, f<»r general circulation throughout our nation, cannot pos- 
sibly be devised. Its several hcctiuus now follow as the sul)ject- 
matters of this preface. 

or TUK NKW liF.WV.S AND TUE NEW EAKTU, AND WUAT IS MEANT 
JIV THE NEW JERUSALEM. 

L It is written in the Kcvolation, " I saw a now heaven and a 
new e;irt!j ; for th.> fii>t heuven and tlio first e:irth had passed away. 
And I, John. Haw the lioly t-ity, xNew .I(>iusalem, coniinj; down froni 
(M.d out «)f heaven, prepjired as ji hride ad..rne.l f,,r her husband 
The city had a wall, groat and hi-h, which had twelve gates and 



HEAVENLY DOCTRINE. 7 

at the gates twelve angels, and names written thereon, which are 
the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel. And the 
wall of the city had twelve foundations, and in them the names of 
the twelve apostles of the Lamb. And the city lieth four-square, 
and the length is as great as the breadth. And he measured the 
city with the reed, twelve thousand furlongs ; the length and the 
breadth and the height of it were equal. And he measured the 
wall thereof, a hundred and forty and four cubits, the measure of 
a man, that is, of the angel. And the wall of it was of jasper ; and 
the city was pure gold, like unto pure glass ; and the foundations 
of the wall of the city were garnished with all manner of precious 
stones. And the twelve gates were twelve pearls. And the street 
of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent glass. The glory 
of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. And the 
nations of them which are saved shall Avalk in the light of it ; and 
the kings of the earth shall bring their glory and honor into it." 
Chap, xxi, 1, 2, 12—24. 

When a man reads these words, he understands them only ac- 
cording to their literal sense, and concludes that the visible heaven 
and earth will be dissolved, and a new heaven be created, and that 
the holy city, Jerusalem, answering to the measures above described, 
will descend upon the new earth: but the angels understand these 
things altogether dilFerentl}^ ; that is to say, what man understands 
naturally, they understand spiritually; and what they understand 
is the true signification ; and this is the internal or spiritual sense of 
the Word. According to this internal or spiritual sense, a new 
heaven and a new earth mean a ncAv church, both in the heavens 
and on the earth, which will be more particularly spoken of here- 
after. The city, Jerusalem, descending from God out of heaven, 
signifies the heavenly doctrine of that church ; the length the 
breadth and the height thereof, which are equal, signify all the 
varieties of good and truth belonging to that doctrine in the aggre- 
gate. The wall of the city means the truths which protect it ; the 
measure of the wall, which is a hundred and forty and four cubits, 
which is the measure of a man, that is, of the angel, signifies all 
those defending truths in the aggregate, and their quality. The 
twelve gates of pearl mean all introductory truths ; and the twelve 
angels at the gates signify the same. The foundations of the wall, 
which are of every precious stone, mean the knowledges on which 
that docrine is founded. The tAvelve tribes of Israel, and the 
twelve apostles, mean all things belonging to the church in general 
and in particular. The city and its streets being of gold like unto 
pure glass, signifies the good of love, giving brightness and trans- 
parency to the doctrines and its truths. The nations w^ho are saved, 
and the kings of the earth Avho bring glory and honor into the city, 
mean all the members of that church who are in goodness and in 
truth. God and the Lamb mean the Lord as to the essential divi- 
nity and the divine humanity. Such is the spiritual sense of the 
Word, to which the natural sense, which is that of the letter, serves 
as a basis ; but still these two senses, the spiritual and the natural, 
form a one by correspondences. 



8 PREFACE. 

2. Before the New Jerusalem and its doctrine are treated of, it 
may be expedient to give some account of the new heaven and tlie 
new earth. What is to be understood by the first heaven and the 
first earth, which passed aAvay, is shown in the small work On ilie 
Last Judgment and the Destruction of Bahylon. Immcdiattdy after 
that event, that is, when the last judgment was completed, a new 
heaven was created or formed by the Lord ; which heaven was 
composed of all those persons who, from the coming of the Lord to 
the present time, had lived in faith and charity ; for such persons 
alone are capable of being assimihited to the form of heaven. For 
the form of heaven, according to which all consociations and com- 
munications therein are effected, is the form of divine truth, 
grounded in divine good, proceeding from the Lord ; and this form 
man, as to his spirit, acquires by a life according to divine truth. 
Hence it may be clearly seen, who they are of whom the new hea- 
ven consists ; and thereby what its quality is, namely, that it is 
altogether unanimous. He who lives in faith and charity, loves 
others as himself, and by love conjoins them with himself, the effect 
of which is reciprocal : for, in the spiritual world, love is conjunc- 
tion. Wherefore, when all act thus, then, from many, yea, from 
innumerable individuals, consociated according to the form of hea- 
ven, unanimity exists, and they become as one ; for then nothing 
separates and divides, but every thing conjoins and unites. 

3. Since this heaven was formed of all those who had been of 
Buch a quality from the coming of the Lord until the present time, 
it follows that it is composed both of Christians and of Gentiles, 
but chiefly of infants, from all parts of the world, who have died 
since the Lord's coming: for all these were received by the Lord, 
and educated in heaven, and instructed by the angels, and reserved, 
that they, together with the others, might constitute a new heaven ; 
whence it may be concluded how vast that heaven is. 

4. Moreover, with respect to this new heaven, it is to be observed, 
that it is distinct from the ancient heavens which were formed be- 
fore the coming of the Lord ; at the same time there is such an 
orderly connection cstal)lished between them, that, together, they 
form but one heaven. The reason why this new heaven is distinct 
from the ancient heavens, is, that in the ancient churches there was 
no other doctrine than the doctrine of love and charity, and that at 
that time they Avere unacquainted with any doctrine of faith sepa- 
rated from those principles. Hence, also, it is, that the ancient 
heavens constitute superior expanses, whilst the new heaven con- 
Btitutes an expanse beneath tliem ; for the heavens are expanses 
one above another. In the highest expanse those dwell who are 
called celestial angels, many of whom were of the most ancient 
church : they are so named from celestial love, which is love to the 
liOrd. In the expanse beneath them are those who are called s])i- 
ritual angels, many of whom were of the ancient church ; they are 
called spiritual angels frt)m spiritual love, wliich is charit}' towards 
our neighbor. Below these are the angels who are in the good of 
faith ; these are they Avho have lived a life of faith : for a man to 
live a life of faith, is to live according to the doctrine of his parti- 



HEAVENLY DOCTRINE. 9 

cular church ; and to live is to will and to do. All these heavens, 
however, form a one, by mediate and immediate influx from the 
Lord. 

5. It may be sufficient to state thus much concerning the new 
heaven ; something shall now be said concerning the new earth. 
By the new earth is understood a new church upon earth ; for when 
a former church ceases to exist, then a new one is established by 
the Lord. It is provided by the Lord that there should always be 
a church on earth, since by means of the church there is a conjunc- 
tion of the Lord with mankind, and of heaven with the world : 
there the Lord is known, and therein are divine truths by which 
man is conjoined to him. The reason why a new church is signified 
by a new earth arises from the spiritual sense of the Word ; for, in 
that sense, by the word earth, or land, no particular country is 
meant, but the nation dwelling there, and its divine worship ; this, 
in the spiritual sense, being what answers to earth in the natural 
sense. Moreover, by earth, or land, in the Word, when there is no 
name of any particular country affixed to the term, is signified the 
land of Canaan ; and in that land a church had existed from the 
earliest ages ; in consequence of which, all the places therein, and 
in the adjacent countries, with the mountains and rivers, as men- 
tioned in the AVord, became representative and significative of those 
things which compose the internals of the church, and which aro 
called its spiritual things. Hence it is, as was observed, that earth, 
or land, in the Word, as meaning the land of Canaan, signifies the 
church ; it is therefore usual in the church to speak of the heavenly 
Canaan, by which is understood heaven itself. Thus, also, by the 
new earth is here meant a now church. 

6. What is understood by Jerusalem in the spiritual sense of the 
Word shall also be briefly described. Jerusalem means the church 
with respect to doctrine, because at Jerusalem, in the land of Ca- 
naan, and in no other place, were the temple, the altar, the sacri- 
fices, and, consequently, all that pertained to divine worship. On 
this account, also, three festivals were celebrated there every year, to 
which every male throughout the whole land was commanded to go. 
This, then, is the reason why Jerusalem, in the spiritual sense, sig- 
nifies the church with respect to worship, or, what is the same thing, 
with respect to doctrine ; for worship is prescribed by doctrine, and 
is performed according to it. The reason why it is said, " the holy 
city, New Jerusalem, descending from God out of heaven," is, be- 
cause, in the spiritual sense of the Word, a city signifies doctrine, 
and a holy city the doctrine of divine truth, since divine truth is 
•what is called holy in the Word. It is called the New Jerusalem 
for the same reason that the earth is called a new earth, because, 
as was observed above, earth or land signifies the church, and Je- 
rusalem, the church with respect to doctrine ; and it is said to 
descend from God out of heaven, because all divine truth, whence 
doctrine is derived, descends out of heaven from the Lord. That 
Jerusalem does not mean a city, although if was seen " as" a city, 
manifestly appears from its being said that " its height was," as its 
length and breadth, " twelve thousand furlongs " (ver. 16) ; and 



10 PREFACE. 

tliat tlio moasurc of Its •^-all, which was " a hundred and forty-fiur 
cul>its," was the measure of a man, that is, of the an<;el (ver. 17) ; 
and also from its bein;^ said to l)e " prepared as a hride adorned for 
her husliand '' (ver. 2) ; and that afterwards " the angel said. Come 
liither, I will show thee the )>ride, the Lamb's wife : and he showed 
nie that great city the holy Jerusalem " (ver. 9, 10). The church is 
called in the "Word the bride and the wife of the Lord ; she is called 
the hride before conjunction, and the wife aft(;r conjunction. 

7. To add a few words respecting the doctrine which is delivered 
in the following pages. This, also, is from heaven, l)eing from the 
spiritual sense of the AVord, which is the san»e with the doctrine 
that is in heaven; for there is a church in heaven as well as 
on earth. In heaven, there are the "Word and the doctrine from 
the Word ; there are places of worship there, and sermons delivered 
in them; there are also both ecclesiastical and civil governments 
there: in a word, the only difference between the things which are 
in heaven and those which are on earth is, that in heaven all things 
exist in a state of greater perfection, since those who dwell there 
are spiritual, and spiritual things immensely exceed in perfection 
those that are natural. Hence may evidently appear what is meantT 
by the holy cit}', New Jerusalem, being seen to descend from God 
out of heaven. But I proceed to the doctrine itself, which is for 
the nevj church, and which is called heavenhf doctrine, because it was 
revealed to me out of heaven. To deliver this doctrine is the desiga 
of the present work. 

INTRODUCTION TO THE DOCTRINE. 

8. When there is no faith in consequence of there heing no 
charity, tlie church is at an end. The churches throughout the 
whole christian world having made their differences to de])end upon 
points of faith, when yet there can be no faith v.here tiiere is no 
charity, I will, by way of introduction to the doctrine which follows, 
make some oljservations concerning the doctrine of charity as held 
by the ancients. When I use the phrase, " the churches in the 
chrislian icorld," I mean protestant churches, and not the popish 
or roman catholic clnirch, since that is not a christian church : for, 
W'herever the church exists, the J^ord is worshiped, and the Word 
is read ; wliereas, among lioman Catholics, they worship themselves 
instead of the Lord; forbid the Word to be read Ijy the people; 
and affirm the pope's decree to be equal, yea, even superior to it. 

9. The doctrine of charity, M'hich is the doctrine of life, was tho 
essential doctrine in tlie ancient churches. And that doctrine con- 
joined all churches, and thereby formed one church out of man}-. 
For they acknowledged all those as members of the church who 
lived in the good (d' charity, and called them bretin-en, however they 
might differ r(>specting truths, wiiich at this day are called matters 
Df faitii. In these they instructed one another, which em[)loyment 
was among their works of charity; nor were they offended if any 
one did not accede to the opinion of another, knowing that every 
one receives truth in proportion to the degree iu which he ia ia 



HEAVENLY DOCTRINE. 11 

good. Such hoing the character of the ancient churches, tlie mem- 
bers composing them Avere interior men ; and, because they were 
interior men, thcj excelled in Avisdom. For they who are in the 
good of love and charity, are, as to the internal man, in heaven, 
and belong to an angelic society in which the same good prevails. 
Hence they enjoy an elevation of mind towards interior things, and, 
consequently, they are in possession of wisdom; for wisdom can 
come from no other source than from heaven, that is, through hea- 
ven from the Lord ; and in heaven there is wisdom, because its 
inhabitants are principled in good. AYisdom consists in seeing 
truth from the light of truth; and the light of truth is the light 
which shines in heaven. But, in process of time, that ancient 
Avisdom decreased; for, as mankind removed themselves from the 
good of love towards the Lord, and of love toAvards the neighbor, 
Avhich latter is called charit^^ they remoA^ed themselves, in the 
same proportion, from wisdom, because, in the same proportion, 
they removed themselves from heaven. Hence it was that man, 
from being internal, became external, and this successively ; and, 
when he became external, he became also AA'orldly and corporeal. 
When such is his quality, he cares but little for the things of 
heaven; for the delights of earthly loves, and the evils Avhich, from 
those loves, are delightful to him, then possess hini entirely. In 
this state, the things which he hears concerning a life after death, 
concerning heaven and hell, and concerning spiritual subjects in 
general, are regarded by him as matters altogether foreign or 
extraneous to him, and not as things in Avhich he has the most 
intimate concern ; as, nevertheless, they ought to be. Hence also 
it is, that the doctrine of charity, which, amongst the ancients, Avas 
held in such estimation, is, at this day, Avith other excellent things, 
altogether lost. For who, at this day, is aware Avhat charity is, in 
the genuine sense of the term, and what, in the same sense, is 
meant by our neighbor? Avhereas, that doctrine not only teaches 
this, but innumcral)ie things besides, of Avhich not a thousandth 
part is knoAvn at this day. The Avhole Sacred Scripture is nothing 
else than the doctrine of love and charity: Avhich the Lord also 
teaches, Avhon he says: "Thou shalt kve the Lord thy God Avith 
all thy heart, and Avith all thy soul, and Avith all thy mind: this is 
the first and great commandment; and the second is like unto it. 
Thou shalt love thy neighbor as th3'self: on these tAA^o command- 
ments, hang all the LaAv and the Prophets." Matt., xxii, 37, 38, 39. 
The LaAV and the Prophets are the Word, in general and in 
particular. 

OF GOOD AXD TRUTH. 

11. All things in the universe Avhich are according to divino 
order, haA'e relation to good and truth. There is nothing, cither in 
heaven or on earth, Avhicli has not relation to tlicse two. The 
reason is, because both good and truth proceed from the Divino 
Being, Avho is the first cause of all. 

12. Hence it appears that there is nothing more necessary for 
man to know than Avliat good and truth arej hoAv the one has 



12 THE FACE. 

respect to tho other; and how tliey become mutually conjoined. 
But 8uoh knuAvledgo is especially necessary for every member of 
the church; for, as all things of heaven have relation to good and 
truth, so also have all things of the church; because the good and 
truth of heaven are also the good and truth of the church. It is 
on this account that, in delivering the doctrine of the Xcv Jerusa- 
lem, we commence with this sul)ject. 

13. It is in agreement with divine order, that good and truth 
should be conjoined, and not separated; thus, that they should be 
one and not two; for they proceed in conjunction from the LHvinc 
Being, and continue so in heaven, and therefore they ought of 
necessity to remain conjoined in the church. The conjunction 
of good and truth is called, in heaven, the heavenly marriage, for 
all there are the subjects of this marriage ; and hence it is that, in 
th(! Word, heaven is compared to a marriage, and that the Lord is 
called the bridegroom and husband, whilst heaven, and also the 
church, are called the bride and wife. The reason why heaven 
and the church are so styled, is, that all therein receive the divine 
good in trutlis. 

14. All the intelligence and wisdom which the angels possess, is 
derived from this marriage of good and truth ; but not any of it 
from good separate from truth, nor from truth separate from good. 
So also it is with the members of the church. 

15. Since, therefore, the conjunction of good and truth resembles 
a marriage, it is evident that there exist between them a mutual 
love and a mutual desire to be conjoined. That member of the 
church, then, who does not possess such love and desire, is not the 
subject of the heavenly marriage; consequently, as yet, the church 
is not in him; for it is tho conjunction of good and truth which 
constitutes the church. 

IG. There are numerous kinds of good, all, however, being com- 
prehended under the general distinction of spiritual and natural 
good, Avhich are conjoined in genuine moral good. As there are 
many kinds of good, so also there are various kinds of truth; for 
all truth pertains to good, and is, indeed, its form. 

17. AV'hat has been said respecting good and truth, may, in a 
contrary sense, be aftirmed of evil and falsity: for, as all things in 
the univcrs(3 which exist according to divine order, have relation 
to good and truth, so also all things which exist in contrariety to 
divine order, have relation to evil and falsity. Again, as there 
exist between good and truth a mutual love and desire to be con- 
joined, so do tjiere exist a similar love and desire between evil and 
falsity. In fine, as all intelligence and wisdom are produced from 
the conjuncticm of g(»od and truth, so all insanity and folly sjjring 
from the conjunction of evil and falsity. This latter conjunction 
is called the infernal marriage. 

18. Now, since evil and falsity are opposed to good and truth, it 
is plain that truth cannot be conjoined with evil, nor good with the 
falsity of evil; for, if truth be adjoined to evil, it is no longer 
truth, but falsity, b-ecause it is falsified; and if j;oud be adjoined 
to the falsity of evil, it is no longer good, but evil, as it is adul- 



HEAVENLY DOCTRINE. 13 

terated. Nevertheless, the falsity which is not grounded in evil, 
admits of being conjoined with good. 

19. No one who, from confirmation and life, is principled in evil, 
and thence in falsity, can know what good and truth are ; for he 
believes his own evil to be good, and his falsity to be truth : but 
every one who, from the same grounds, is principled in good and 
thence in truth, is capable of knowing what evil and falsity are. 
The reason of this is, because all good, with its truth, is, in its 
essence, celestial; and such as is not celestial in its essence, is still 
from a celestial origin: but all evil, with its falsity, is, in its es- 
sence, infernal; and such as is not infernal in its essence, has, 
nevertheless, its origin thence : and all that is celestial is in light, 
but all that is infernal is in darkness. 



OF THE WILL AXD THE UNDERSTANDING. 

28. Man is endowed with two ficulties which constitute his life: 
one is called the will, and the other the understanding. These 
faculties are distinct from each other, but are so created as to form 
a one ; and, when they are thus united, they are called the mind. 
Of these, then, the human mind consists; and in them resides the 
v^hole life of man. 

29. As all things in the universe which are according to divine 
order, have relation to good and truth, so all things in man have 
relation to the will and the understanding; for good in man per- 
tains to his will, and truth in him pertains to his understanding. 
These two faculties, or these two lives, in man, are respectively 
their receptacles and subjects: the will being the receptacle and 
subject of all things relating to good, and the understanding the 
receptacle and subject of all things relating to truth. Goods 
and truths have no other residence with man ; so neither, for the 
same reason, have love and faith; for love pertains to good, and 
good to love; and faith pertains to truth, and truth to faith. 

30. Since, then, all things in the universe have relation to good 
and truth, and all things belonging to the church to the good of 
love and the truth of faith ; and since it is from the possession of the 
faculties of will and understanding that man is man ; they are 
treated of in this doctrine ; for otherwise man could have no distinct 
idea of them, to form a basis for his thoughts. 

31. The will and the understanding constitute also the spirit of 
man ; for in these, his wisdom and intelligence, and his life in 
general, reside, the body being only their passive organ. 

32. Nothing is of more importance to be known, than in what 
manner the will and understanding make one mind. This they do 
as good and truth form a one ; for between the will and the under- 
standing there is a marriage, similar to that which takes place 
between good and truth. What the nature of this marriage is, 
may fully appear from what has been adduced above, in the section 
On Good and Truth: namely, that as good is the very esse of a 
thing, and truth is the existere derived from that esse, so the will, 
in man, is the vory esse of his life, and the understanding is the 



14 PREFACE. 

exisfcre of lils life thonce derived : fur good, wliich belongs to the 
yv\\\, assumes to itself a form iu the uudcrstauding, and thus ren- 
ders itself visible. 

33. They who are principled in good and truth have will and un- 
derstanding; but they who are principled in evil and in falsity have 
no will and understanding properly considered; Init instead of 
■will they have cupidity, and instead of understanding they have 
mere science. The human will, when truly such, is the receptacle 
of good, and the understanding is the receptacle of truth ; for which 
reason, will cannot be predicated of evil, nor can understanding be 
predicated of falsity, because they are opposites, and opposites 
destroy each other. Hence it is, that the man who is principled 
in evil and thence in falsity, cannot be called rational, wise and in- 
telligent, properly speaking. With the evil, also, the interiors of the 
mind, in which the will and the understanding principally reside, 
are closed. It is supposed, however, that the evil, as well as the 
good, have will and understanding, because they say that they will 
and that they understand : but their volition is only the exercise 
of their cupidity, and their intellection is nothing more than science. 

OF THE INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL MAN. 

36. Man is so created as to be in the spiritual and in the na- 
tural world at the same time. The spiritual world is that which 
is the abode of angels, and the natural world is that which is the 
abode of men. A man is so created, he is endowed both with an 
internal and an external ; that by means of his internal he may Ije 
present in the spiritual world, and by means of his external in the 
natural world. His internal is what is called the internal man, 
and his external is what is called the external man. 

37. Every man is possessed of both an internal and an external ; 
"but these widely differ with the good and the evil. With the good, 
the internal is in heaven and in its light, and the external is in 
the world and in its light: and, with them, this latter light is illu- 
minated by the light of heaven, so that their internal and external 
act in unity, or form a one, like cause and effect, or like what is 
prior and what is posterior. But, with the evil, the internal is in 
the world and in its light; as is also the external ; for which reason 
they sec nothing from the light of heaven, but only from the light 
of the world, which they call the light of nature, llence it is that, 
to them, the things of heaven are immersed in darkness, whilst the 
things of the world appear in light, llence it is manifest, that the 
good have both an internal and an external man, but that the evil 
have not an internal man, but only an external. 

38. The internal man is called the spiritual man, because it is 
in the light of heaven, which light is spiritual: and the external 
man is called the natural man, because it is in the light of the 
world, which light ts natural. The man whose internal is in the 
light of heaven, and whose external is in the light of the world, is 
a spiritual man as to both; but the man whose internal is not in 
the light of heaven, but only in the light of the wArld, in wliich is 
Lis external also, is a natural man as to both. The spiritual man 



HEAVENLY DOCTIIINE. 15 

IS said in the Word to be alive, but the natural man is said to bo 
dead. 

39. The man whose internal is in the light of heaven and his 
external in the light of the Avorld, thinks both spiritually and 
naturally; but, when he thinks naturally, his spiritual thought 
flows into his natural thought, and is thore perceived. But the man 
who has both his internal and external in the light of the world, 
docs not think spiritually^ but materially: for he thinks from such 
things as are within nature as it belongs to the world, all which 
are material. To think spiritually, is to think of things as they 
essentially are, to see truths jn the light of truth, and to perceive 
goods from the love of good ; also, to see the qualities of things, 
and to perceive their affections, abstractedly from matter. But to 
think materially of things, is to think, to see and to perceive them 
together with matter and in matter, thus in a gross and obscure 
manner respectively. 

40. The internal spiritual man, simply considered, is an angel 
of heaven ; and, during his life in the body, although not conscious 
of the fact, is also in society with angels, amongst whom he is 
introduced after his separation from the body. But the merely 
natural man, as to his internal or soul, is a spirit, but not an 
angel: he also, during his life in the body, is in society v>uth spirits, 
but with those who are in hell ; and amongst these he is introduced 
after his separation from the body. 

41. The interiors of the mind of those who are spiritual men, are 
also actually elevated towards heaven ; for heaven is the primary 
object of thcur regard: but with those vrho are merely natural, the 
interiors are directed towards the world, because this is the primary 
object of regard with them. Indeed, the interiors of every man's 
mind are directed towards that which he loves supremely ; and his 
exteriors take the same direction. 

42. They who entertain only a general idea concerning the 
internal and external man, believe that it is the internal man which 
thinks and wills, and that it is the external man which speaks and 
acts ; because to think and to will relate to what is internal, and to 
speak and act to what is external. But it is to be observed, that, 
when man thinks intelligently, and wills wisely, he thinks and wills 
from a spiritual internal ; but when he does not thus think and will, 
he thinks and wills from a natural internal. Ilcnco, when man 
thinks well concerning the Lord and those things which are the 
Lord's, and concerning the neighbor and the things which are the 
neighbor's, and wills vrell towards them, he then thinks and Avills 
from a spiritual internal ; because from the fiith of truth and the 
love of good, consequently, from heaven. But, when man is ill 
affected towards them, both in thought and in will, ho thinks and 
wills from a natural internal ; because from the faith of what is 
false and the love of what is evil, consequently, from hell. In 
short, so fiir as man is principled in love to the Lord, he is in the 
spiritual internal, whence he both thinks and wills, and also speaks 
and acts; but, so far as he is in the love of self and in the love of 
the world, he is in the natural internal, from which ho thinks and 
Vfills, and also speaks and acts. 



IQ PREFACE. 

43. It iM BO provided and ord<'rcd by the Lord, that, in proportion 
AA man thinks and wills from heaven, his internal ppiritual man is 
opened and furnn-d : it is opcneil into heaven even to the Lord; 
and it is funned aeoonling to tliosc thinj^s which belong to heaven. 
But, on the c<»ntrary, in proportion as man docs not think and Avill 
from heaven, hut from the worhl, his internal spiritual man is 
rlojiod, and his external is opened : and it is opened into the world, 
and is formed accordinj:^ to those thinp;s which belong to the world. 

•II. They who have the internal spiritual man opened into hca- 
Ten to the I^)rd, are in tlie li^dit of heaven, and in illumination 
from tlif I/<»r«l, and are thence in intelli;;ence and wisdom ; they 
MM« truth in the li;:ht uf trutii, and ])<M-eeivc good from the love of 
;;ood. Hut thev whose internal s]>iritual man is closed, do not so 
much as know'that there is an internal man; much less do they 
know wlmt the internal man is; neither do they believe that thero 
is a l>i\ine Being, nor that there is a life after death; consequently, 
neither do they l)elievo in any tiling belonging to heaven and the 
cljurch. Ami since such persons are only in the light of the world, 
and in illumination thence, they Ijciievc in nature as the Divine 
Being: they sec f:'lsity as truth, and ]»erceive evil as good. 

•1'). The man whoso internal is so i'ar external that he believes 
in nothing but wliat he can see with his eyes, and touch with his 
hamls, is caUed a sensual man. Tiie sensual man is one who is in 
tli<' lowest degree natural; and he is in fallacies concerning all 
thingH belonging to iaith and the e Juirch. 

•10. The internal and external which have been treated of, are 
the internal and external of the sitirit of man ; his body being 
merely an a«lditional external, within which the former exist: for 
the body «l(»es nothing of itself, but is solely actuated by the spirit 
which is in it. And here it is to be observed, that th'e spirit of 
man, aftrr its sejiaration from the body, thinks, and wills, and 
hpf.nks, an<l acts, as it did when in the body: to think and to will 
cunatitutc its internal, and to speak and to act, its external. 

OF LOVE I.V GENERAL. 

r>4. The very life of man is his love, and according to the quality 
of that h.xr, hueh is his lif.', yea, such is the whole man; it is, 
howe\er, the ruling or reigning h>ve, whiih constitutes the man. 
This love i« acronipanied by numerous other loves, Avhich are de- 
rived from it and are in .'•ubordination to it. These present them- 
MdveM to \\rw nn.jer other forms, but still they are all compre- 
hende<l in the ruling love, and form, with it, one kingdom. The 
ruling love is, as it were, their king and head; it directs all their 
movements, and by them, as mediate ends, it regards and designs 
its own en.l, which is the primary and ultimate end of all; and tliis 
irt done both dire.ily and indirectly. The object of the ruling love is 
tluit whieh is loved snpremelv. 

r,o. 'Whatever a man lov.'s snpremelv is continuallv present in 
hi« thought.-* and in his will, and constitutes the ^eries*t essence of 
his life. An, for example, the man who loves wealth above ail 



HEAVENLY DOCTRINE. 17 

other things, -whether in money or possessions, is continually re- 
volving in liis mind how he may attain it ; tlie possession of ife 
affords him his highest joy, and the loss of it fills him with the 
deepest sorrow ; lor his wealth absorbs his whole heart. So, also, 
the man who loves himself above all other objects, regards himself 
in all that he does; he thinks of himself, speaks of himself, and 
acts entirely for the sake of himself; for his life is the life of self. 

56. That which a man loves supremely forms the end which lie 
always has in view; he regards it in the whole of his conduct, even 
in the most minute particulars. It lurks in his Avill, and, like the 
latent current of a river, draws and bears him away, even when he 
is employed in other affairs ; for it constitutes his animating prin- 
ciple. Such is the nature of this love, that one man tries to discover 
it in another, and, when he has found it, he either entirely leads 
him by it, or regulates all his intercourse with him according to it. 

57. Man is entirely of such a character as is the ruling principle 
of his life. It is this which distinguishes one man from another; 
and to this the heaven of each individual is adapted, if he is a good 
man, and his hell, if he is a wicked man. It is this which consti- 
tutes his very will, his proper self, and his peculiar nature ; for it 
is the very esse of his life. This cannot be changed after death, 
for it is the man himself. 

58. All the delight, pleasure and happiness which any one en- 
joys, are derived from his ruling love, and are in perfect accordance 
with it; for that which man loves he calls delightful, because ho 
feels it to be so: he may, indeed, also call that delightful which is 
an object of thought Avith him, but which he does not love; but this 
is not the delight of his life. That which is delightful to man'.s 
love is what he esteems good; and that which is disagreeable to it 
he considers evil. 

59. There are two distinct loves, from which, as their fountains, 
all the varieties of good and of truth exist ; and there are two distinct 
loves, from which all the varieties of evil and of fiilsity exist. The 
two loves, from which the varieties of good and truth are derived, 
are love to the Lord and love towards the neighbor; and the two 
loves, whence spring all the varieties of evil and of falsity, are the 
love of self and the love of the world. The two latter are in direct 
opposition to the 'two former. 

GO. The two loves from which all the varieties of good and truth 
are derived, and which, as has just been stated, are love to the Lord 
and love towards the neighbor, constitute heaven in man, and 
therefore they reign in heaven : and, since they constitute heaven 
in man, they also constitute the church in him. The tAVO loves, 
whence all the varieties of evil and of falsity proceed, and which, 
as has just been said, are the love of self and the love of the world, 
constitute hell in man ; wherefore, also, they are the loves which 
reign in hell. 

61. The two loves whence all the varieties of good and of truth 
are derived, andAvhich, as already observed, are the loves of heaven, 
open and form the internal s]»iri[ual man, l)ecause it is in this that 
they have their residence. But the two loves Avheucc origiuaLc all 



Ig TREFACE. 

the varieties of rvil sukI (.f fiilsity, whon thoy obtain the ascendancy, 
tiliiit up nil. I .Ir^trov the int.Tiial spiritual man, aiul render man 
nuiural hikI s.Msu:il,'iu i.n.portiou to the extent and quality of their 
duminiuii. 

OF THE I.OVE OF SELF AND THE LOVE OF THE WORLD. 

C'). The lovo of polf consists in wishin^r -well to ourselves alone, 
and not to others, unless it he for the sake of ourselves; not even 
to th«' cliunh, to our country, to society, (^r to a felhnv-citizen. 
Thii h»vi*, it is true, may conO^r benefits on these several relations, 
A%-hfn it» own reputation, honor and ^lory are concerned; but un- 
IcMM it WOPS that the^'e will be secured by thus actin;^, its language 
ii«, ** To what ].urpose is it? "Why sliould I do this? Of what ad- 
vantage will it be to me?" And thus it omits it. Hence it is evi- 
dent that the man w ho is infUicncefl ]>y self-love, does not, in reality, 
love cither the church, or his country, or his fellow-citizen, or so- 
ciety, or anv thing good, but himself alone. 

r»0. Man IS under the dominion of self-love, when, in his thoughts 
and actions, he has no n-ganl to the neighbor, consequently, none 
f«»r the public, still less ior the Lord, l)ut for himself alone and his 
connc'ctions. Thus, whilst every thing which he does is for tlie 
fake of himself and his connections, should he even do any thing 
for his neighl^or and for the public, it is done merely for the sake 
of app<*arance. 

07. We have said, himself and his connections; for the man -who 
loves himself, loves those also w ho are connected with him. These 
are, in j»artieular, his chiMren and his other near relations, and, in 
general, all who c<»-oj»erate with him, and whom he calls his friends. 
Still, however, his love for these; is only s<'lf-love, for he regards 
them, as it were, in himself, and himself in them. vVmongst those 
\%liom such a nnm denoininates liis friends, are all they who ilatter 
him, honor him, and pay their court to him. 

('•H. lie also is inider the influence of self-love, who thinks 
contemptuously of the neighbor in comparison with himself, and 
enteems him as an enemy unless ho shows him marks of favor, 
re»|>ccta him. and treats liim w ith great courtesy. But still more 
is he actuated by the love of self, who, for such reasons, hates and 
jKTj4e«-utes the nei;:hl>or; and more so still the man who burns with 
revenge against him, and desires his destruction. Such persons at 
length come to delight in savage crindty. 

«■»'.». The true nature of self-love may bo clearly discerned from 
comparing it with heavenly love. Heavenly love consists in loving, 
for it.s own sake, the use or the good whicha man ought to ]»erform 
to tlte church, to his country, to society, and to his fellow-citizens; 
but he who loves those for his own sake, loves them no otherwise 
than he loves his domestics, that is, because they are serviceable to 
liini. Hence it follows, that he who is immersed in self-love, would 
doBiro to have the church, his country, society, and his fellow- 
cititenM, to be his servants, rather than that he should serve them ; 
Uo exalts himself above them, and abases them beneath himself. 



HEAVENLY DOCTRINE. 19 

70. Moreover, in proportion as any one is influenced by celestial 
love, which consists in loving offices of usefulness, delighting in 
the performance of good deeds, and in being affected with joy of 
heart in thus acting, he is led by the Lord, for in this love the Lord 
himself is, and from him it has its origin. But, on the contrary, 
so far as any one is influenced by self-love, ho is led by himself; 
and as far as he is so led, he is guided by his own selfhood, Avhich 
is nothing but evil, being that hereditary evil which disposes man 
to love himself in preference to God, and the world in preference to 
heaven. 

71. Such also is the nature of self-love, that, in proportion as 
the reins are given to it, that is, so far as external restraints are 
removed, such as the fear of the law and its penalties, the loss of 
reputation, of honor, of gain, of office, or of life, it rushes on with 
such unlimited desire as to grasp at universal dominion, not only 
over this world, but also over heaven, yea, over God himself; for 
its aim is boundless. This propensity lurks in the heart of every 
man who is governed by self-love, although it may not be visible 
to the eyes of the world, in consequence of the checks and restraints 
before mentioned. Besides, when such a character encounters an 
insuperable obstacle, he waits till it is removed ; and hence it is 
that even he himself is not aAvare that such a mad and unbounded 
cupidity lies latent within him. That this, hoAvever, is really the 
case, any one may see who observes the conduct of potentates and 
kings, who are not subject to such chocks, restraints and insu- 
perable obstacles, and who, so long as success attends their enter- 
prises, rush on, and subjugate provinces and kingdoms, panting 
after unlimited power and glory. This is still more apparent in 
the case of those who endeavor to extend their dominion into hea- 
ven, transferring to themselves the divine power of the Lord, and 
thirsting after something beyond even that. 

72. There are two general kinds of dominion, one originating in 
love towards the neighbor, the other in the love of self; and these 
are, in essence, directly opposed to each other. He who exercises 
dominion from the influence of love towards the neighbor, is desi- 
rous of promoting the welfare of all, and has no higher delight 
than that which arises from the performance of works of real utility: 
this is his love, and the very delight of his heart. The higher such 
a person is exalted in dignit}^ tiie greater is his joy ; not, indeed, 
on account of the dignity itself, but because the sphere of his use- 
fulness is thus enlarged in extent, and rendered more excellent in 
degree. Such is the dominion that prevails in the heavens. But 
he who rules under the influence of self-love, has no desire to pro- 
mote the welfare of any beyond himself and his own connections. 
The Avorks of utility which he performs are done for the advance- 
ment of his own honor and glory, Avhich he considers as the only 
objects Avorthy of his pursuit. Hence, Avhen he serves others, it is 
only that he may himself be serA'ed, honored and entrusted Avith 
dominion; he desires preferment, not for the sake of extending his 
means of doing good, but that he may obtain pre-eminence and 
glory, and thus enjoy the delight of his heart. 



2.0 PREFACE. 

73. Tiic love of (loininion remains also v.'itli man after tlic termi- 
nation of his life in this world. They -who have exercised it from 
love towards the nci^iibor, are then intrusted with dominion in the 
heavens ; still, however, it is not they who rule, but the useful 
offices which they y)erform, and the floods which they love; and 
when these rule, the Lord rules. Those, on the contrary, who, 
durino; their abode in the world, have exorcised dominion from the 
iniluonce of self-love, have their abode in hell, where they are vile 
slaves. 

74. From what has been said, it may easily be perceived who 
they arc that are influenced by the hjvc of self. Nor is it of any 
conse([uencc how they appear externally, whether liaughty or 
humble; for the qualities which have been specified exist in tho 
internal man, which the generality of mankind study to conceal, 
whilst they teach the external to assume the contrary appearance 
of love for the public good, and for the welfare of tho neighbor. 
This also they do for the sake of self; for they well know that such 
love has the power of interiorly moving the affections of all men, 
and that they will be loved and esteemed in proportion as they 
appear to be under its influence. The reason why that love is pos- 
sessed of such power is, because heaven enters into it by influx. 

75. The evils which predominate in those whose ruling princi- 
ple is self-love, are, in general, contempt of others, envy, enmity 
towards those who do not favor their designs, with hostility on that 
account; also hatreds of various kinds, revenge, cunning, deceit, 
unmercifulness and cruelty. "Where such evils exist, there is also 
a contempt of God, and of divine things, that is, of all the good 
and truth belonging to the church ; or, if there be any respect shown 
to these by such persons, it is in words only, and not from the 
heart. And as such evils result from the love of self, it is also 
attended by corresponding falsities from the same source; for 
falsities are derived from evils. 

70. The love of the world consists in desiring to appropriate to 
oursclvcf^ by every availalde artifice, the wealth of others; also, in 
setting the heart on riches, and suffering the world to withdraw 
our affections from spiritual love, which is love towards the neigh- 
bor, consequently, from heaven. They are influenced by the love 
of the world, who are desirous of appropriating to tlicmselves the 
property of others by various artifices; they particularly who have 
recourse to cunning and deceit, esteeming the welfare oi' the neigh- 
bor as of no account whatever. Such persons greedily covet tho 
goods of others; and, when not restrained by the fear of the laws 
and the loss of reputation, which they regard only for the sake r»f 
gain, they deprive others of their possessions, nay, rob and plunder 
them. 

77. The love of the world is not opposed to heavenly love in the 
pame degree that the love of self is, because the evils contained in 
it are not so great. The love of the world is manifold. There is 
the love of riches as the means of exaltation to honors : there is the 
love of lionors and dignities us tlio moans of olttaining wealth; 
there is the lovo of Aveaith for various ubca with which men arc 



HEAVENLY DOCTRINE. 21 

delighted in the world ; there is also the love of wealth merely for 
its own sake, which is the love of misers; and so in other instances. 
The end for which wealth is desired is called its use, and from the 
end or use tlie love derives its quality. The nature of all love is 
determined by the use to which it is directed ; other things serve 
but as means to promote the end. 

78. In short, the love of self and the love of the world are in 
direct opposition to love of the Lord and love towards the neigh- 
bor; wherefore the loves of self and the world are infernal, and 
reign in hell, and constitute hell in man: but love to the Lord and 
love towards the neighbor are of heavenly origin, and reign in 
heaven, and constitute heaven in man. 

79. From what has now been said, it may be clearly seen, that 
all evils are contained in these loves, and are derived from them ; 
ft)r the evils Avhich are enumerated at n. 75, are common or general 
in their nature ; and the others, which were not enumerated there, 
because they are particular evils, are derived and flow from them. 
Hence it appears that, since man is born into the love of self and 
of the world, he is born into evils of every description. 

80. In order that man may know what evils are, he ought to 
know their origin; and unless he knows what evils are, he cannot 
know what good is; consequently, neither can he know of what 
quality he himself is : and for this reason these two origins of evil 
have been here treated of. 



OF LOVE TOWARDS THE NEIGHBOR, OR CHARITY. 

84. Here it shall first be shown what is meant by the term 
neighbor; as it is the neighbor who is to be loved, and towards 
whom charity is to be exercised. Unless this point be clearly 
understood, charity may be exercised indiscriminately towards the 
evil and the good, and thus become no charity at all; for the evil, 
from the benefactions they receive, do evil to the neighbor, but the 
good do good. 

85. It is a prevailing opinion at the present day, that every man 
is to be considered as being equally the neighljor, and that acts of 
beneficence are to be performed towards every one who needs our 
assistance. But it is the province of christian prudence thoroughly 
to scrutinize the quality of a man's life, and to exercise charity to 
him according!}'. The man who is a member of the internal church, 
exercises his charity in this manner; but he who is of the external 
church, because he cannot so easily discern things, acts without 
discrimination. 

86. The distinctions of neighbor, which the member of the church 
ought well to understand, depend upon the degree of good which 
each man possesses. And since all good proceeds from the Lord, 
the Lord himself is neighbor in the supreme sense of that word, 
and in the super-eminent degree, and from him is the origin of this 
relationship. Hence it follows, tliat as fiir as the Lord is resident 
with any one, so far that man is the neighbor; and becaiise no one 
receives the Lord, that is, receives good from him, in exactly tho 



22 PREFACE. 

Bamo manner as anotlier Hoc^, no one can ho the noij^hhor in tho 
eaine manner as anotiier is; i'or all who arc in the heavens, and all 
the good who are on earth, difler from each other as to the degree 
of tl)eir goodness. No two persons ever receive a divine gift that is 
in all respects one and the same: such gifts must he various, that 
each may suhsist hy itself. But all these varieties, consequently 
all the distinctions "which exist in the relationship of neighhor, 
Avhieh depend on the reception of the Lord, that is, on the reception 
of good from him, can never be known by any man, nor indeed by 
any angel, exce[»t in a general manner, or with respect to their 
genera and species; neither does the Lord require any thing more 
from the members of his church, than that each should live accord- 
ing to what he knows. 

87. Since every one possesses good in a different degree, it fol- 
lows, that the quality of that good determines in what degree, and 
in what proportion, any man is to bo considered as our neiglibor. 
That this is the case, is plain from tlie Lord's parable concerning 
the man w ho fell among thieves, whom, when half dead, the priest, 
and also the Levite, passed by; but whom the Samaritan, after 
pouring oil and wine into his wounds, and liinding them up, took 
upon his own beast, and brouglit to an inn, giving orders that care 
should be taken of him. This man, because he did good from a 
principle of genuine charity, is called his neighbor, (Luke, x, 
20 — 37): whence it may be known, that they who are influenced 
by good are neighbors; for the oil and wine which the Samaritan 
poured into the wounds, signify good and its truth. 
. 88. From what has now been said, it is evident that good, in the 
universal sense of that word, is the neighbor; because man is the 
neighbor only according to the quality of the good which he receives 
from the Lord. And because good itself is the neighbor, so also 
is love; for all good is from love: consequently, every man is the 
neighbor according to the quality of the love which he possesses 
from the Lord. 

89. That it is love wliich constitutes any one the neighbor, and 
that every man is the neighbor according to the quality of the love, 
manifestly appears from the case of those who are influenced by 
the love of self. Such persons acknowledge as neighbor those who 
love them most; that is, they regard them as such, so far as they 
favor their own interests. These they embrace; they treat them 
with ail'ection, confer on them their iavors, and call them their 
brethren: nay more ; because they are evil, they acknowledge them 
as neighljors in proportion as th.ey love themselves, thus according 
to the quality and extent of their love. Men of this description 
deduce the origin of neighbor from self; and for this reason, that 
love constitutes and determines it. But those who do not love 
themselves aljove others, as is the character of all who belong to the 
kingdom of tho Lord, derive the origin of neighbor from llim whom 
they ought to love sujiremely, thus from the Lord ; an<l they estci'iu 
every one as neighbor according to the (pmlity of his love to tlii» 
L<»rd, thus according to the ret-ejttion of the Lord's hive in himself, 
llcucc ills manifest what the members of the church ought to cou 



HEAVENLY DOCTRINE. 23 

sider as thft orii^in of the relationship of neighbor; and that every 
one is to be esteemed a neighbor, according to the good Avhich ho 
possesses from the Lord; consequently, that good itself is the 
neighbor. 

90. That this is the case, the Lord also teaches in Matthew, 
where, speaking of those who had lived in the practice of good 
works, he says, " that they had given him to eat, that they had 
given him to drink, that they had taken him in, had clothed him, 
had visited him, and had come to him when in prison;" and after- 
wards, where he says, " that inasmuch as they had done these 
things to the least of his brethren, they had done them to himself.'' 
XXV, 34 — 40. In these six varieties of good, as understood in the 
spiritual sense, are comprehended all the particulars in the relation- 
ship of neighbor. Hence, also, it is evident, that, when good is 
loved, the Lord himself is loved ; for it is from the Lord that all 
good proceeds — he is in it, and is good itself. 

9L But not only is man the neighbor in his individual capacity, 
but also considered collectively ; for a less or greater society, the 
church, the kingdom of the Lord, and above all the Lord himself, 
is each also the neighbor. These are our neighbor, and to these 
we are to do good from a principle of love. These also constitute 
the ascending degrees of this relationship: for a society consisting 
of many, is the neighbor in a higher degree than an individual; 
our country is so in a still higher degree ; the church in a still 
higher degree than our country; and, in a degree higher still, the 
kingdom of the Lord: but, in the supreme degree of all, the Lord 
himself is the neighbor. These degrees of ascent are like the steps 
of a ladder, at the top of which is the Lord. 

92. The reason why a society is the neighbor more than an indi- 
vidual man, is, because it consists of many. Charity must be ex- 
ercised towards a society in the same manner as towards an indivi- 
dual, namely, according to the quality of the good which it possesses ; 
consequently, in a manner totally different towards a society of well- 
disposed persons, from what must be the case towards a society of 
an opposite character. A society is loved, when its good or welfare 
is consulted, under the influence of the love of good. 

93. Our country is the neighbor more than a society, because it 
is like a parent; for therein a man is born, and by it he is nou- 
rished and protected from injuries. It is our duty to do good to 
our country, from a principle of love, according to its necessities, 
which principally regard the sustenance, and the civil and spiritual 
life of its inhabitants. The man who loves his country, and does 
good to it from a principle of benevolence, when he comes into the 
other life, loves the kingdom of the Lord; for, in that life, the king- 
dom of the Lord is his country: and he who loves the kingdom of 
the Lord, loves the Lord himself; for the Lord is all in all in his 
kingdom. 

94. The church is the neighbor more than our country ; for he 
who consults the welfore of the church, provides for the souls, and 
f )r the eternal life, of those who dwell in his country. He, there- 
fore, who, from love, provides for the church, loves the neighbor 



24 PREFACE. 

in a superior doo;roe: for he ^visl^es, and earnestly desires, that 
heaven and the happiness of eternal life may be the portion of 
others. 

Do. The kingdom of the Lord is the neighbor in a still higher 
degree ; for his kingdom consists of all who are influenced by good, 
both on earth and in heaven. Thus the kingdom of the Lord is 
good, with all its ((uality, in the aggregate; and when this is loved, 
the individuals who are in good are loved also. 

90. These are the degrees of the relationship of neighbor, and, 
according to these, love ascends in all who are influenced by 
the love of the neighbor. But these degrees are degrees of succes- 
sive order, in which what is prior or superior is to be preferred to 
what is posterior and inferior. And since the Lord is in the supreme 
degree, and is to be regarded in each degree as the end to which it 
tends, he, consequently, is to be loved above all persons, and above 
all things. Hence it may now be seen, in what manner love to the 
Lord conjoins itself with love towards the neighljor. 

97. It is a common saying, that every man is his own neighbor, 
that is, that every one should first take care of himself; or, in other 
words, that charity begins at home: but the doctrine of charity 
teaches in what sense this is to be understood. Every one ought 
to provide for himself the necessaries of life, such as food, raiment, 
a place of habitation, and other things which his situation in civil 
life necessarily requires. And this he ought to do, not only fur 
himself, but also for his family and his dependents; and not for 
the present time only, but also for the future. For, unless a man 
provide for himself the necessaries of life, he cannot be in circum- 
stances to exercise charity, being himself in want (jf all things, 

98. In what sense every man ought to consider himself as his 
own neighbor, may appear from the following comparisons. Every 
man ought to provide food and raiment for his body ; this must be 
the first object of his care; but then the end in view must be, to 
have a sound mind in a healthy body. Every man ought also to 
provide for the necessary requirements of his mind; that is, to 
store it with such things as will raise it in intelligence and wisdom, 
and thus qualify him for being of service to his fellow-citizens, to 
his country, to the church, and thus to the Lord. The man who 
thus acts, provides for his own spiritual welfare to eternity. Hence 
it is obvious, that the end, whatever it be, is the primary object of 
attention ; for all intermediate objects regard it. The case is similar 
to that of a man who builds a house: the first thing he does is to 
lay a solid foundation; and the foundation is laid for tlu; sake of 
the house, and the house is built for the purpose of being inhabited. 
But the man who regards himself as his nearest neighbor, resem- 
bles him who considers the foundation of his house as the chief 
end, and not the house itself, as a place of abode: whereas the 
habitation is the first and ultimate end; and the house, with ita 
foundation, is only a means to that end. 

^ 99. The end plainly shows the sense in which a man should con- 
eider himself as his own neighbor, and provide for himself in the 
first instance. If his end be to become richer than others, solely 



HEAVENLY DOCTRINE. 25 

for the sake of riches, of pleasure, or of station, and the like, it is 
a bad end, and such a man does not love his neighbor, but himself: 
l)ut if, on the contrary, his end be to procure riches that he may 
thereby provide for the good of his fellow-citizens, of society in 
general, of his country, and of the church ; as, xilso, if he procure 
for himself offices of usefulness for the same purposes, he loves hia 
neighbor. And because every man's first and ultimate end is that 
which he loves supremely, the end for which he acts is what con- 
stitutes the man: for this end is his love. 

What has hitherto been said has been confined to the relation- 
ehip of neighbor; love towards him, or charity, shall now be con- 
sidered. 

100. It is the opinion of many, that charity consists in giving to 
the poor, in assisting the needy, and in doing good indiscriminately: 
charity, however, consists in acting with prudence, and with a viev? 
to good as the result. He who bestows his bounty on a poor or 
needy villain, does evil to his neighbor through such a person; for 
he thus confirms him in evil, and supplies him with the means of 
doing evil to others. The case is otherwise with him who supplies 
the wants of the good. 

101. But charity embraces operations much more extensive than 
those which relate to the relief of the poor and needy: it consists 
in doing what is right in every action of life, and in the faithful 
performance of our duty in every office. Thus, if a judge admi- 
nisters justice for its own sake, he exercises charity; if he punishes 
the guilty, and acquits the innocent, he exercises charity; for, in 
so doing, he promotes the welfare of his fellow-citizens, and of his 
country. The christian minister, again, who teaches truth, and 
leads the people of his charge to good, for the sake of truth and of 
good, exercises charity : but he who does such things from selfish 
and worldly motives, does not exercise charity, for he does not love 
his neighbor, but only himself. 

102. The case is similar with all other instances, whether in pri- 
vate or in public life; as with the behavior of children to their 
parents, and of parents to their children; of servants to their mas- 
tors, and of masters to their servants; of subjects to their king, and 
of kings to their subjects. In all these cases, whoever performs 
liis duty from a principle of duty, and does what is just from a 
principle of justice, exercises charity. 

103. The reason why these things are included in the love of the 
neighbor, or charity, is, because, as was said above, every individual 
man is the neighbor, although in a difierent manner ; a society, 
whether great or small, is the neighbor more than an individual; 
our country more than a society; the kingdom of the Lord more 
than our country; and the Lord himself above all; and, in the 
universal sense, good, which proceeds from the Lord ; consequently, 
also, sincerity and justice. The man, therefore, who does good of 
any kind, for its own sake, and who acts sincerely and justly for 
the sake of sincerity and justice, loves the neighbor, and exercises 
charity; for ho acts from the love of good, sincerity and justice; 

3 



♦2^ PREFACE. 

find, consequently, from love to those in •whom good, sincerity and 
justice dwell. 

104. Charity, therefore, is an internal affection, from which man 
is desirous to do good, and to do so without the hope of remunera- 
tion — tlie delight of his life consisting in thus acting. Those who 
do good from this internal affection, are influenced by charity in all 
that they think and say, desire and practise. It may he said, 
that a man, or an angel, is, as to his interiors, charity itself, when 
lie makes good to be the neighbor. So wide is the sphere of opera- 
tion which charity embraces. 

105. Those who propose to themselves the love of self and the 
world as the end of their actions, cannot, in any respect, be influ- 
enced by charity. They do not even know what charity is, and 
are utterly at a loss to comprehend how the desire of benefiting 
their neighbor, and performing acts of kindness to him, without a 
view to reward, should constitute heaven in man; and that there 
is inherent in such affection a degree of felicity equal to that expe- 
rienced by the angels in heaven, which is ineffable. The reason is, 
that they imagine, that if they were to be deprived of the pleasure 
arising from honors and riches, they should experience joy no more: 
whereas it is only when such prospects are abandoned, that heavenly 
joy, which infinitely transcends all other, commences. 

OF FAITH. 

108. It is impossible for any one to know the essence of faith, 
unless he know the essence of charity; because where there is no 
charity, there is no faith: for charity and faith form a one, like 
good and truth. AVhat a man loves or holds dear, he esteems good ; 
and what he believes, he esteems true: whence it is manifest, that 
there is a oneness between charity and faith similar to that between 
good and truth. The nature of their union may be clearly seen 
from what has been said above under the head Good and Truth. 

109. The oneness existing between charity and faith is also 
similar to that between the will and understanding in man ; for 
these two faculties are the respective receptacles of good and truth 
— the will receiving good, and the understanding, truth: thus, also, 
these two faculties receive charity and faith ; for good belongs to 
charity,* and truth, to faith. Every one knoAvs that charity and 
faith reside with man, and in man; and, since this is the case, 
they must reside in his Avill and understanding; for therein and 
thence is all the life of man. Man, it is true, is also endowed with 
memory; but this is only the outer court, where those things which 
are to enter into the understanding and the will are collected to- 
gether. Hence, it is evident, there is a union, or oneness, of faith 
and charity, like that of the will and understanding; the nature of 
which union may be understood from what has been said above 
under the head Will and Understanding. 

110. Charity conjoins itself with faith in man, when he wills 
what he knows and perceives : to will has relation to charity — to 



HEAVENLY DOCTRINE. 27 

know and perceive, to fliith. Faith enters man, and becomes his 
own, when he wills and loves what he knows and perceives; but, 
unless this be the case, it remains without him. 

111. Faith is not in reality faith in man, unless it become spirit- 
ual ; and it does not become spiritual, unless it belong to his love ; 
and it may be said to belong to his love, when man embodies truth 
and good in his life ; that is, when he lives according to those things 
which are commanded in the AVord. 

112. Faith is the affection of truth arising from willing truth 
purely for its own sake ; and to will truth for its own sake is the 
true spiritual principle of man — being entirely distinct from the 
natural principle, which consists in willing truth, not for the sake 
of truth, but for the sake of personal glory, reputation or gain. To 
will truth abstractedly from such motives, is spiritual, because it is 
from a divine origin. Whatever proceeds from a divine origin, is 
spiritual ; and this is conjoined to man by love; for love is spiritual 
conjunction. 

113. Man may know, think and understand much; but, when 
he is left to solitary reflection, he rejects from himself every thing 
that is not in accordance with his ruling love. Hence, also, ho 
rejects such things after the life of the body, when he lives as a 
spirit: that alone remains in the spirit of man which has entered 
into his love; all other things, after death, are regarded by him as 
foreign, and are cast out, because they belong not to his love. It 
is said that this takes place with the spirit of man, because, after 
the dissolution of the body, man lives a spirit. 

114. Some idea may be formed of the good of charity, and the 
truth of faith, from the light and heat of the sun. When the light 
which proceeds from the sun is conjoined with the heat, as in the 
spring and summer, all the productions of the earth germinate and 
flourish; but, when there is no heat in the light, as in the time of 
winter, all the productions of the earth become torpid and die. 
Just so it is with the truth of faith, which is spiritual light, and 
with love, which is spiritual heat. Ilence, then, a correct idea may 
be formed of the state of every man who is a member of the church, 
and also of his quality, when his faith is conjoined to charity, and 
when his faith is separated from charity: in the former case, ho 
resembles a garden and a paradise; in the latter, a desert, or a 
land covered with snow. 

115. The confidence or trust which is said to arise from faith, 
and which is called essential saving faith, is not spiritual confidence 
or trust, but merely natural, when it is from faith alone. Spiritual 
confidence or trust has its essence and life from the good of love, 
but not from faith separate from that good. The confidence of 
fiiith separate from good is dead; on which account true confidence 
is impossible for those who live in the practice of evil ; neither is 
that confidence which leads to the expectation of obtaining salvation 
on account of the Lord's merit with the father, whatever may have 
been the nature of a man's life, a confidence founded on truth. All 
who possess spiritual faitli, have a confidence that they shall l)o 
saved by the Lordj for they believe that the Lord came into the 



28 PREFACE. 

world to give eternal life to those who believe in him, and who live 
according to the precepts which he taught — that he regenerates 
them, and renders them meet for heaven; and that he alone effects 
this, from pure mercy, and without the aid of man. 

116. To believe those things which are taught in the AVord, or 
which are enforced by the doctrine of the church, and not, at the 
same time, to live according to them, appears, indeed, as if it were 
faith ; and, by such faith, some suppose they are saved ; but, by this 
alone, no one can be saved ; for it is merely persuasive faith, the 
real nature of which shall now be explained. 

117. Faith is persuasive, when the Word and the doctrine of the 
church are believed and loved, not for the sake of truth and a life 
according to it, but for the sake of gain, of honor, and reputation 
for learning, as ends: wherefore, they who entertain this faith, do 
not look to the Lord and to heaven, but to themselves and the 
world. Those who aspire after great things in the world, and are 
covetous of extensive possessions, are under a stronger persuasion 
of the truth of what is taught by the church, than those whose 
aims are more humble, and whose desires are more moderate. 
The reason is, that the former regard the doctrine of the church 
only as the means of attaining their own ends ; and, in proportion 
as the ends are coveted, the means are loved, and are also believed. 
But the real case stands thus. So far as men are inflamed by the 
love of self and the world, and from such excitement speak, preach 
and act, they are under the influence of the above mentioned per- 
suasion, and they know no otherwise than that all is reality ; but, 
when the ardor of those afiections has abated, or is removed, they 
believe but little, and, often times, nothing at all. From this it is 
evident, that persuasive faith is the faith of the lips only, and not 
of the heart ; and that in itself it is no faith. 

118. Those who possess persuasive faith do not know, from any 
internal enlightenment, whether what they teach be true or false; 
neither, indeed, do they care, provided it be believed by the vulgar; 
for they have no affection of truth for its own sake; and hence they 
abandon their faith, whenever they are deprived of honor and gain, 
excepting when their reputation is in danger of being injured. 
Persuasive faith does not exist internally with man, but stands 
without, in the memory only ; whence it is taken, whenever it is 
required to be taught. On this account, both that faith and the 
truths belonging to it are dissipated after death; for then there 
remains only so much of faith as is within man, that is, as is rooted 
in good, and has thus become a part of the life. 

119. Those who have only this persuasive faith, are described 
by the Lord, in the gospel by Matthew, where he says: "Many 
will say to me, in that day. Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in 
thy name, and in thy name have cast out devils, and in thy name 
done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, 
I never knew you ; depart from me, ye that work iniquity.'' vii, 
22, 23. Also in Luke: "Then shall ye begin to say. We have 
eaten and drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught in our streets. 
But he shall say, I tell you, I know you not whence ye are ; depart 



HEAVENLY DOCTRINE. 29 

from me, all ye workers of iniquity." xiii, 26, 27. The same per- 
sons are understood also by the five foolish virgins, who had no 
oil in their lamps, and who are thus described in Matthew: " After- 
wards came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us. 
But he answered and said, Verily, I say unto you, I know you 
not." XXV, 11, 12. Oil in lamps, signifies the good of love in faith. 

OP PIETY. 

123. Many believe that spiritual life, or the life which leads to 
heaven, consists in piety, in external sanctity, and the renunciation 
of the world: yet piety without charity, external without internal 
sanctity, and a renunciation of the world without a life in the world, 
do not constitute spiritual life. Life truly spiritual consists in piety 
from charity ; in external sanctity from internal sanctity ; and in a 
renunciation of the world during a life in the world. 

124. Piety consists in thinking and speaking piously ; in devot- 
ing much time to prayer; in behaving with becoming humility 
during that time; in frequenting places of public worship, and 
attending devoutly to the discourses delivered there ; in receiving 
the sacrament of the holy supper frequently every year; and in a 
due observance of the various other parts of divine worship, accord- 
ing to the appointments of the church. But the life of charity 
consists in cultivating good will towards the neighbor, and endea- 
voring to promote his interest; in being guided in all our actions 
by justice and equity, good and truth, and in this manner dis- 
charging every duty; in one word, the life of charity consists in 
the performance of uses. Divine worship primarily consists in the 
life of charity, and secondarily in that of piety; he, therefore, who 
separates the one from the other, that is, who lives in the practice 
of piety, and not at the same time in the exercise of charity, does 
not worship God. He thinks, indeed, of God; yet not from God; 
but from himself: he thinks of himself continually, and not at all 
of the neighbor ; and, even if he does think of the neighbor, it is 
with disesteem, unless he be like himself. He likewise thinks of 
heaven as a reward, and he entertains in his mind the idea of merit, 
and also the love of self, together with a contempt for or neglect of 
uses, and thus of the neighbor; while, at the same time, he trusts 
in himself that he is blameless. Hence it may be seen, that the 
life of piety, separate from the life of charity, is not the spiritual 
life Avhich is essential to divine worship. See Matt., vi, 7, 8. 

125. External sanctity is like external piety, and is not holy with 
man, unless his internal be holy; for the quality of man's internal 
determines that of his external, since the latter proceeds from the 
former, as action from its cause : external sanctity, therefore, with- 
out internal, is natural and not spiritual. Hence it is that exter- 
ternal sanctity is found with the evil as well as with the good ; and 
they who place the whole of divine worship in it, are, for the most 
part, extremely ignorant; that is, they are destitute of the know- 
ledge of good and truth, which yet form the real sanctities that are 
to be known, believed and loved, because they arc from God, and 



30 PREFACE. 

God is in them. Intcrniil sanctity, therefore, consists in loving 
good and truth, justice and sincerity, for their own sakes. So far, 
also, as man thus loves tliese, so far he is spiritual, and his worship 
is spiritual; because so far he is desirous of knowing them and of 
doing them: but so far as he does not thus love them, he is natural 
and his worship is natural; and so far he is unwilling either to 
know them or to do them. External worship without internal, may 
be compared to the life of the respiration without the life of the 
heart; but external worship arising from internal, may be com- 
pared to the life of the respiration conjoined to the life of the heart. 

126. As regards a renunciation of the world : it is the opinion of 
many, that to renounce the world, and to live in the spirit and not 
in the flesh, means to reject all w-orldly concerns, especially riches 
and honors; to be continually engaged in pious meditation on God, 
on salvation, and on eternal life; to devote one's whole life to 
prayer, to the reading of the Word, and the perusal of pious books; 
and to suffer self-inflicted pain. This, however, is not what is 
meant by renouncing the world. To renounce the world is to love 
God and to love the neighbor; and a man loves God when he lives 
according to his commandments ; and he loves the neighbor when 
he performs uses. In order, therefore, that man may receive the 
life of heaven, it is necessary that he should live in the world, and 
engage in the various offices and businesses of life. A life of ab- 
straction from secular concerns, is a life of thought and faith sepa- 
rate from a life of love and charity ; and in such a life, the princi- 
ple which prompts man to desire and to promote the good of the 
neighbor, must necessarily perish. When this is the case, the spi- 
ritual life becomes like a house without a foundation, which either 
gradually sinks to the ground, or becomes full of clefts and chinks, 
or totters till it falls. 

127. That to do good is to worship the Lord, appears from the 
■words of the Lord himself: " Therefore, whosoever heareth these 
sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, 
who built his house upon a rock. — And every one that heareth 
these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a 
foolish man, who built his house upon the sand." Matt., vii, 24, 
27; Luke, vi, 47, 48, 49._ 

128. From these particulars, it may be clearly seen, that a life 
of piety is valuable, and is acceptable to the Lord, so far as a life of 
charity is conjoined with it; for this is the primary, and such as 
the quality of this is, such is that of the former. Also, that external 
sanctity is of value, and is acceptable to the Lord, so far as it pro- 
ceeds from internal sanctity; for such as the quality of this is, such 
is that of the former. And also, that the renunciation of the world 
is of value, and is acceptable to the Lord, so far as it is practised 
in the world ; for they renounce the world, who remove the love of 
self and the world, and act justly and sincerely in every office, in 
every business, and in every work, from an interior, thus from a 
heavenly origin ; which origin dwells in a man's life when he acts 
rightly, sincerely and justly, because it is according to the divine 
laws. 



HEAVENLY DOCTRINE. 31 



OF COXSCIENCE. 



130. Conscience is formed in man from his religion, according 
to his inward reception of the same. 

131. With the man who is a member of the church, conscience 
is formed by means of the truths of foith derived from the Word, or 
by teaching from the Word, according to the reception of those 
truths in the heart; for, -vrhen man knows the truths of fiiith, and, 
after his own manner, assents to them, and carries them into prac- 
tice, he acquires conscience. By reception in the heart, is meant 
reception in the will, for man's will is what is called the heart. 
Hence it is, that they who have conscience speak from the heart in 
all that they say, and act from the heart in all that they do. The 
mind of such persons is simple or undivided, for they act in accord- 
ance with what they understand and believe to be true and good. 

132. A conscience approaching nearer to perfection may be en- 
joyed by those who are more enlightened in the truths of faith, and 
whose perception is clearer, than can be possessed by others who 
are less enlightened, and whose perception is obscure. 

133. The real spiritual life of man resides in a true conscience; 
for that is the proper abode of his faith conjoined to his charity. 
Hence, with those who possess it, to act from conscience is to act 
from their own spiritual life, and to act contrary to conscience is 
to act contrary to that life. Hence also it is, that such persons 
enjoy the tranquillity of peace and internal happiness, when they 
act according to the dictates of conscience ; and that they experi- 
ence perturbation and pain of mind when these are disregarded* 
This mental pain is commonly called remorse of conscience. 

134. Man is endowed with a conscience of what is good, and a con^ 
science of what is just: the conscience of what is good is that of the 
internal man, and the conscience of what is just is that of the ex- 
ternal man. The former of these consists in acting according to 
the precepts of faith from internal affection ; the latter, in acting 
according to civil and moral laws from external affection. They 
who have the conscience of what is good, have also the conscience 
of what is just; and they who have only the conscience of what is 
just, possess the means of obtaining the conscience of what is good, 
and also do obtain it when they are instructed. 

135. Conscience, in those who are in charity towards the neigh- 
bor, is the conscience of truth, because it is formed by means of 
the faith of truth ; but, in those who are in love to the Lord, it is 
the conscience of good, because it is formed by means of the love 
of truth: the conscience of these is of a higher order, and is called 
the perception of truth from good. Those who possess the conscience 
of truth, belong to the Lord's spiritual kingdom; but those who 
possess the conscience of good, which is superior, and is called per- 
ception, belong to the Lord's celestial kingdom. 

136. The real nature of conscience shall now be illustrated by 
examples. If one man be in possession of another's property whilst 
the other is ignorant of it, and thus have it ia his power to retaia 



32 PREFACE. 

it ^ylthout fear of the law, or the loss of honor and reputation, and 
yet restores it to the other because it is not his o\vn, he has con- 
science; for, in thus aetin;;, he does good for its own sake, and acts 
justly for the sake of justice. Again: if a person has it in his 
power to obtain an office of distinction, but knows that another 
person, who is also a candidate for it, possesses talents that might 
qualify him for being more serviceable to his country, and on that 
account declines the competition, he has a good conscience. And 
so in all other cases. 

137. From these instances, it may be concluded, of what quality 
they are who are devoid of conscience; they are known from their 
being of an opposite description. Thus, they who, for the sake of 
gain, represent as just what is unjust, and as good what is evil, 
and the contrary, have no conscience ; nor, indeed, do they know 
what conscience is ; and, if they are instructed respecting it, they 
do not believe, and some are even unwilling to know. Such, then, 
is the quality of those who, in all their transactions, have respect 
only to themselves and the world. 

138. Those who have not received conscience during their abode 
in this world, cannot receive it in the other life, and thus cannot 
be saved. The reason of this is, that they have no plane into which 
heaven, that is, the Lord through heaven, may flow, and by means 
of which he may operate upon them, and thus lead them to him- 
self; for conscience is the plane and receptacle of the influx of 
heaven. 



OF LIBERTY. 

141. All liberty is the ofi'spring of love; for what a man loves, 
he performs freely: hence, all liberty originates in the will; for 
what a man loves, he also wills : and, because love and will consti- 
tute the life of man, so also does liberty. Hence it may readily be 
seen what liberty is, namely, that it is of the love and the will, and 
thence of the life of man ; whence it is, that what a man docs from 
liberty, appears to him as if it proceeded from his very self. 

142. When man does evil from liberty, it seems to him to be 
liberty, when in reality it is slavery, because it springs from the 
love of self and of the world, and this love is from hell : and, after 
death, such liberty is actually turned into slavery ; for then the man, 
who has been led by it, becomes a degraded slave in hell. But, 
■when a man does good from liberty, he does in reality enjoy liberty, 
because it proceeds from love to the Lord and from love towards 
the neighbor, and the love of these is from heaven. This liberty 
remains with man after death also, and then becomes liberty in the 
highest sense of that word; for ho who has lived in it on earth, 
becomes, in heaven, like a son in his father's house. This the Lord 
teaches, where he says : " Whosoever committcth sin, is the servant 
of sin. And the servant abideth not in the house for ever; but the 
BOn abideth for ever. If the son, therefore, shall make you free, 
ye shall be free indeed." John, viii, 34, 35, 30. Now, because all 
good is from the Lord, and all evil from hell, it follows, that true 



IIEAA'ENLY DOCTRINE. 83 

liberty consists in being led by the Lord, and slavery in belno; led 
by hell. 

143. Man has the liberty of thinking what is evil and f\ilse, and 
of doing the same, — so fiir as he is not restrained by the laws, — in 
order that he may be capable of being reformed ; for goods and 
truths must be implanted in his love and in his will, that they may 
be incorporated with his life; and this cannot be efi'ected, unless he 
have the liberty of thinking what is evil and false, as well as what 
is good and true. This lii)erty is granted to every man hy the 
Lord; and, so far as he rejects evil and falsit}', when he is thinking 
of good and truth, the Lord implants these in his love and in his 
will, consequently in his life, and thus reforms him. Now, what- 
ever is inseminated in the mind, while in a state of liberty, re- 
mains; but what is inseminated by compulsion, does not remain, 
becau':=e it is not from the will of the man himself, but from the 
will of him who compels. Hence, also, it is, that worship performed 
from liberty is pleasing to the Lord, and that worship from com- 
pulsion is not so; for the former worship is from love, but the latter 
is not. 

144. Although the liberty of doing good and the liberty of doing 
evil appear externally alike, they are as different and as distant 
from each other as heaven is from hell. Also, the liberty of doing 
good is from heaven, and is called heavenl}^ liberty ; but the liberty 
of doing evil is from hell, and is called infernal liberty. So far a.-a 
man is in the one state of liberty, so far he is removed from the 
other; for no man can serve two masters. (Matt., vi, 24.) The 
same truth is also manifest from the fact, that they who are in a 
state of infernal liberty think it compulsion and slavery not to bo 
allowed to will evil and to think f\\lsity at their pleasure ; while, 
on the contrary, they who are in a state of heavenly liberty, abhor 
willing evil and thinking falsity, and would feel tormented, if com- 
pelled to do so. 

145. And because acting from liberty appears to man like acting 
from his proprium, heavenly liberty may hence be called the hea- 
venly proprium, and infernal li])erty the infernal proprium. The 
infernal proprium is that into which man is born, and is evil; but 
the heavenly proprium is that into which man is brought by rege- 
neration, and is good. 

146. From this it may clearly appear, that free will consists in 
doing good from choice or will, and that they who suffer themselves 
to be led by the Lord are in it; and they are led by the Lord, who 
love good and truth for their own sakes. 

147. Man may readily discern of what quality his liberty is, from 
the nature of the delight which he experiences when he thinks, 
speaks, acts, hears and sees; for all delight is of love, 

OF MERIT. 

150. They who do good with a view to merit, are not influenced 
by the love of good, but by the love of reward; for they who are 
desirous of merit, are also desirous of reward; and they who thus 



34 PREFACE. 

act, have respect to tlio reward, in wliich, and not In good, they 
place their delight. Such, therefore, are not spiritual men, but 
natural. 

151. To do good which is really such, man must act from the love 
of good, and thus for the sake of good. They who are influenced 
by this love are unwilling so much as to hear of merit: for they 
love to do good, and have a lively perception of satisfaction in doing 
it ; and, on the contrary, they are grieved when it is supposed Ity any 
one that what they do has respect to any selfish motive. They are 
like those who do good to their friends for the sake of friendship, 
to a brother for the sake of brotherhood, to a wife and children for 
their own sake, to their country for their country's sake, and thus 
from friendship and love. They who think rightly, also say and 
insist, that the good which they do is not for their own sakes, but 
for the sake of those to whom it is done. 

152. They who do good for the sake of reward, do not act from 
the Lord, but from themselves ; they regard themselves in the first 
place, inasmuch as they regard their own good; the good of the 
neighbor, that is, of their fellow-citizens, of human society, of their 
country and the church, they regard in no other light than as means 
to this end. Hence it is that the good of self-love and of the love 
of the world, is latent in the good of merit, which good is from 
man, and not from the Lord ; and all good which is from man is 
not good ; nay, so far as self and the world are latent in it, it is 
evil. 

153. Genuine charity and faith entirely disclaim all merit; for 
the delight of charity is good itself, and the delight of faith is truth 
itself; they, therefore, who are in such charity and faith, know 
what the nature of non-meritorious good is, but not they who are 
not in charity and faith. 

154. The Lord himself plainly teaches that man is not to do good 
for the sake of reward, where he says: " For, if ye love them that 
love you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love those that love 
them. But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping 
for nothing again ; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be 
the children of the Highest.'^ Luke, vi, 32, 35. That man cannot 
of himself do good that is really good, the Lord teaches in John : 
" A man can receive nothing except it be given him from heaven. '' 
iii, 27. And again, Jesus saith: "As the branch cannot bear fruit 
of itself, except it abide in the vine, no more can ye, except ye 
abide in me.^ I am the vine, ye are the branches. lie that abideth 
in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit; for with- 
out me ye can do nothing." xv, 4, 5. 

155. Since all good and truth are from the Lord, and nothing 
from man; and since good that comes from man is not good in 
reality ; it plainly follows, that no merit belongs to man, but that 
all merit is due to the Lord alone. The merit of the Lord consists 
in this, that, by his own poAver, he has efiected the salvation of the 
human race; and, also, that he saves those who do good from him. 
Hence it is that, in the Word, he to whom the merit and righteous- 
ness of the Lord are ascribed, is called righteous : and he to Avhoin 



HEAVENLY DOCTRINE. 35 

are ascribed his own righteousness and the merit of self, is called 
unrighteous. 

156. Tlie delight which is inherent in the love of doing good 
without any view to reward, is itself an eternal reward; for heaven 
and eternal happiness are inseminated into that good by the Lord. 

157. They who think and believe that those who do good will 
enter heaven, and that man must do good in order to enter, do not 
view reward as an end, neither do they place merit in works ; for 
even they who do good from the Lord both think and believe so : 
but they who, while they thus think, believe and act, are not in- 
fluenced by the love of good for its own sake, have respect to re- 
ward as an end, and consider their works as meritorious. 

OF REPENTANCE, AND THE REMISSION OF SINS.'] 

159. He who would be saved, must confess his sins, and do the 
work of repentance. 

IGO. To confess sins, is to know evils, to perceive them in ones- 
self, to charge onesself with their guilt, and to condemn onesself 
on account of them. AVhen this is done in the presence of God, it 
constitutes the confession of sins. 

161. To perform the work of repentance, is to abstain from sing 
after they have been confessed, and supplication has been made for 
their remission, from humility of heart; and to live in newness of 
life, according to the precepts of charity and faith. 

162. The man who makes only a general acknowledgment that 
he is a sinner, charging himself as guilty of all evils, and yet does 
not examine himself, that is, does not really see his own sins, may 
indeed make confession, but not the confession of repentance : for 
such a person, because he does not know his own evils, lives in the 
practice of them afterwards, just as he had done before. 

163. He who lives in the practice of charity and fiiith, performs 
the work of repentance daily ; he reflects on the evils that adhere 
to him, acknowledges them, guards against them, and supplicates 
the Lord for aid to resist them. For man, of himself, continually 
lapses into evil, but is continually raised by the Lord, and led to 
good. Such is the case with those who are in good ; but they who 
are in evil lapse continually, and are also continually raised by the 
Lord ; but they are only withheld from falling into the most dreadful 
evils, to which, of themselves, they tend with all their might. 

164. The man who examines himself for the purpose of doing the 
work of repentance, must closely examine the thoughts and inten- 
tions of his will, and must thence infer what he would do, were he 
permitted, that is, if not restrained by the fear of the laws, and the 
loss of reputation, of honor and of gain ; for the evils of man reside 
in his thoughts and intentions, and from these proceed all the evil 
actions which he commits in the body. This is self-examination. 
But they who do not examine their evils of thought and will, can- 
not do the work of repentance ; for they both think and desire after- 
wards as they did before ; and to will or desire evil is virtually to 
do it. 



36 PREFACE. 

165. Repentance •which consists merely in words find does not 
affect the life, is not repentance ; neither are sins remitted by such 
repentance, but only by repentance of life. Sins are indeed con- 
tinually remitted to man by the Lord; for the Lord is mercy itself: 
but still tliey adhere to man, however he may think they are re- 
mitted; nor are they removed from him, except by a life according 
to the precepts of true faith. So far as man lives according to those 
precepts, so far his sins are removed; and so far as they are re- 
moved, 80 far they are remitted. ^ 

106. It is commonly supposed that, when sins are remitted, they 
are wiped away, or washed off, as filth is by water; yet sins are 
not wiped away, but removed ; that is, man is withheld from them 
when he is kept in good by the Lord; and, when this is the case, 
it appears to him as if he were without his sins, thus as if they 
were wiped away. And, so far as man is reformed, so far he is 
capable of being kept in good. IIow this reformation is effected, 
will be shown in the following chapter on regeneration. He who 
Bupposes that sins are remitted in any other way, is greatly 
deceived. 

167.- The evidences that accompany the remission, that is, the 
removal, of sins, are the folloAving. They whose sins are remitted, 
experience a delight in worshiping GocI for his own sake, and in 
serving the neighbor for the sake of the neighbor — in doing good 
for the sake of good, and in speaking truth for the sake of truth. 
Such persons disclaim all merit in the exercise of their charity and 
faith; they are utterly averse to all evils, as enmity, hatred, re- 
venge, adulter}'; and not only do they shun them, but they abhor 
the very thought of them connected with any intention. But the 
evidences that sins are not remitted, or removed, are these. They 
whose sins are not remitted, do not worship God for his own sake, 
nor serve the neighbor for his own sake ; thus they do not do good 
and speak truth for the sake of good and truth, but for the sake of 
themselves and the world. They claim merit on account of their 
deeds : they perceive nothing undelightful in evils, such as enmity, 
hatred, revenge and adultery ; and, inflamed with these lusts, they 
cherish the thought of them in all licentiousness. 
• 168. The repentance which takes place in a state of freedom, is 
effectual; but that which is produced in a state of compulsion, is 
not so. A state of compulsion is that arising from sickness, or de- 
jection of mind induced by misfortunes; from the expectation of 
imminent death; and, in short, from any state of fear which takes 
away the free use of reason. A wicked man, in a state of compul- 
sion, may promise repentance, and perform good actions ; but, as 
soon as he regains a state of freedom, he returns to his former life 
of evil. AVith a good man, the case is otherwise. 

169. When a man has examined himself, acknowledged his sins, 
and done the work of repentance, he must continue steadfastly 

{)ersevering in the practice of what is good, even to the end of his 
ife. For, should he afterwards relapse into his former evil life, 
and embrace it, he becomes guilty of profanation; since he then 
conjoins evil with good, and his latter state becomes worse than 



HEAVENLY DOCTRINE. 87 

the former; according to the -words of the Lord: "When the un- 
clean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, 
seeking rest, and findeth none. Then he saith, I will return into 
nij house, from whence I came out; and, when he is come, he 
fi^ideth it empty, swept and garnished. Then goeth he, and taketh 
with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and 
they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is 
worse than the first." Matt., xii, 43, 44, 45. 

OF REGEXERATIOX. — 

173. The man who does not receive spiritual life, that is, who is 
not born anew by the Lord, cannot enter into heaven. This the 
Lord plainly teaches in John: " Yerily, verily, I say unto thee, 
except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." 
iii, 3. 

174. Man is not born of his parents into spiritual life, but only 
into natural life. The spiritual life of man consists in loving God 
above all things, and in loving the neighbor as himself, and this 
according to the precepts which the Lord has taught in the Word ; 
but natural life consists in loving ourselves and the world more 
than the neighbor, yea, more than God himself. 

175. Every man is born of his parents into the evils of self-love 
and of the love of the world ; for every evil, which by habit has, 
as it were, contracted to itself a nature, is transmitted to the oif- 
spring. In this way evil descends successively from parents, from 
grandfathers, and from other ancestors, in a long series backwards ; 
and the derivation of evil becomes at length so great, that the whole 
of man's proper life is nothing but evil. This continuous deriva- 
tion of evil cannot be broken and altered, except by a life of faith 
and charity from the Lord. 

176. Man is continually inclining to that which he derives from 
his hereditary nature, and lapsing into it; hence he confirms that 
evil in himself, and also superadds many more evils of himself. 
These evils are altogether contrary to spiritual life, and destroy it ; 
so that, unless man receives a new life, which is spiritual life, from 
the Lord, — unless he is conceived anew, born anew, and educated 
anew, in a word, created anew, — he must be condemned; for his 
will and thoughts are Avholly occupied with things of a selfish and 
worldly nature, as is the case with those who are in hell. 

177. No one can be regenerated unless he be instructed in the 
knowledge of those things which belong to the new or spiritual 
life; and the things that belong to that life are the truths Avhich 
are to be believed, and the goods which are to be done; the former 
have respect to faith, and the latter to charity. Nor can any one 
know these things from himself; for man, in this respect, appre- 
hends only those things which are obvious to the senses, and from 
these procures for himself what is called natural light ; by means 
of which he discerns what has relation to the world and to himself, 
but not to heaven and to God. The truths relating to these, must 
be learned from revelation; as, that the Lord, who is God from 

4 






S8 pheface. 

etfirnitj, came into the world to save tlio human raco; that he haB 
all power in heaven and on earth; that faith and charity, with all 
that pertains to them, whether of truth or of good, are from him; 
that there is a heaven and a hell; and that man lives to eternity — • 
in heaven, if he has done good, but in hell, if he has done evil. 

178. These, witii numerous other things, are objects of faith, and 
must be known ])y the man who underg(jos the process of regene- 
ration: for he who knows them, may make them the objects of his 
thought, afterwards of his will, and finally reduce them to prac- 
tice, and thus obtain new life. Thus he who dues not know that 
the Lord is the savior of the human race, can neither believe in 
liim, love him, nor do good for his sake, lie who does not know 
that the Lord is the source of all good, cannot be persuaded that 
salvation is wholly from him, still less can he desire that it should 
be so, and thus he cannot live from the Lord. He who is ignorant 
of the existence of heaven and hell, and of eternal life, cannot even 
think respecting the life of heaven, nor can he apply to receive it. 
The same holds true in other cases. 

179. Every one has an internal man and an external: the internal 
is the spiritual man, and the external is the natural man; and each 
of these must be regenerated, in order that the entire man may be 
80. In the unregenerate, the external or natural man rules, and 
the internal is in subjection; but, in the regenerate, the internal 
or spiritual man has the ascendancy, and the external is in subjec- 
tion. Hence it is evident that the true order of life is inverted in 
man from his birth; that is to say, the principle which serves ought 
to rule, and that which rules ought to serve. In order that man 
may be saved, this order of things must be inverted; and such in- 
version can only be effected by regeneration from the Lord. 

180. "What is meant by the internal man ruling and the external 
serving, and the reverse, may be thus explained. "When a man 
places all his good in voluptuousness, in gain, and in pride, de- 
lights in hatred and revenge, and endeavors to find in his mind 
reasons to justify him, then his external man rules, and his internal 
serves ; but, when a man finds delight in thinking and willing well, 
sincerely and justly, and in outwardly speaking and acting in the 
same manner, then the internal man rules, and the external uboys. 

181. The internal man is first regenerated by the Lord, and the 
external afterwards, and the latter by means of the former; for the 
internal man is regenerated by embracing the things which bekmg 
to faith and charity, and the external, by a life in accordance with 
them. This is meant by the Lord's words, Avhere he sa^'s: " Ex- 
cept a man be born of water and of the spirit, he cannot enter into 
the kingd(»m of God." John, iii, 5. In the spiritual sense, water 
is the truth of fuitli, and the spirit is a life according to it. 

182. lie who is rogonerated, is, as to his internal man, in heaven, 
and is an angel there with the angels, into Avhose society he is 
admitted after the dissolution of the body; when ho is capable of 
entering on a full enjoyment of the life of heaven, which consists 
in loving the Lord, in loving the neighbor, in understanding truth, 
loving good, and perceiving the felicity thence derived. 



HEAVENLY DOCTRINE. 39 



OF TEMPTATION. 



187. They alone who are regenerating, undergo sph-itual tempta- 
tions ; such temptations being pains of mind, induced by evil spirits, 
in those who are in good and truth. While those spirits excite the 
evils of such persons, there arises in the mind the anxiety of temp- 
tation. IMan does not know Avhence this anxiety comes, because 
he is unacquainted with its spiritual origin. 

188. There are both evil and good spirits attendant on every man ; 
the evil spirits are in his evils, and the good spirits in his'goods. 
When the evil spirits approach, they draw forth his evils, while the 
good spirits, on the contrary, draw forth his goods: whence arise 
collision and combat, causing in the man an interior anxiety, which 
is temptation. Hence it is plain, that temptations are not induced 
by heaven, but by hell; as is in accordance with the faith of the 
church, which teaches that God tempts no man. 

189. Interior anxieties are also experienced by those who arc 
not in goods and truths ; but natural, not spiritual anxieties: the 
two are distinguished by this, that natural anxieties have worldly 
things for their objects, but spiritual anxieties, heavenly things. 

190. The object contended for during temptations, is the domi- 
nion of good over evil, or of evil over good. The evil which is 
desirous of obtaining the dominion, resides in the natural or exter- 
nal man, and the good in the spiritual or internal man. If evil 
prevails, the natural man obtains the dominion; but, if good pre- 
vails, the spiritual conquers. 

191. These combats are carried on by the truths of fiiith derived 
from the Word. By these man must contend against evils and 
falsities ; for, if he combats from any other principles, he cannot 
conquer, because in these alone the Lord is present. And as this 
warfare is carried on by the truths of faith, man is not permitted 
to enter on it until he has been instructed in the knowledge of 
good and truth, and has thence obtained some degree of spiritual 
life ; such combats, therefore, do not take place till men arrive at 
years of maturity. 

192. If man falls in temptation, his state after if becomes Avorse 
than before, because evil has acquired power over good, and falsity 
over truth. 

193. Since, at this day, faith is rare, because there is no charity, 
the church being at its end, there are but few who are admitted 
into an}?- spiritual temptations ; hence it is scarcely known what 
they are, and to what salutary purpose they are conducive. 

194. The ends to which temptations are conducive, are these. 
They acquire, for good, dominion over evil, and, for truth, dominion 
over falsity; they confirm truths in the mind, and conjoin them to 
good ; and they disperse evils and the falsities thence derived. They 
serve, also, to open the internal spiritual man, and to bring the 
natural man into subjection to it; to destroy the loves of self and 
the world, and to subdue the concupiscences which proceed from 
tliem. When these things are effected, man acquires eulightcu- 



40 PREFACE. 

ment and perception respecting the nature of good and its truth, 
and of falsity and its evil; whence he obtains intelligence and 
wisdom, which afterwards increase continually. 

195. The Lord alone com})ats for man in temptation ; and, unless 
he believes that the Lord alone combats and conquers for him, he 
undergoes only an external temptation, which is in no respect con- 
ducive to his salvation. 



OF BAPTISM. 

202. The ordinance of baptism is intended as a sign that the 
person baptized belongs to tlic church, and as a memorial that he 
must be regenerated; for the washing of baptism has no other 
signification than that of spiritual washing, or regeneration. 

203. All regeneration is effected by the Lord, through the instru- 
mentality of the truths of faith, and of a life in accordance with 
them. Baptism, therefore, is a testification that the person bap- 
tized belongs to the church, and is capable of being regenerated: 
for it is in the church that the Lord, who alone regenerates man, 
is acknowledged; and there also is the AVord, which contains the 
truths of faith, by which regeneration is effected. 

204. These truths the Lord teaches in John: "Except a man be 
born of water and of the spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom 
of God." iii, 5. "Water, in the spiritual sense, here signifies the 
truth of faith derived from the AVord; the spirit, a life according 
to that truth; and being born, being regenerated thereby. 

205. Since every one who is regenerated, also undergoes tempta- 
tions, which are spiritual combats against evil and falsity, the 
water used in baptism likewise signifies those temptations. 

20G. As baptism is appointed a sign and memorial of those things, 
man may be baptized as an infant, and, if he has not been baptized 
in his infancy, he may be baptized as an adult. 

207. Let those, therefore, who are baptized, remember, that bap- 
tism itself confers upon its subjects neither faith nor salvation, but 
merely testifies that they will receive faith, and that they will be 
saved, if they are regenerated. 

208. Hence riiay be seen the import of the Lord's words in Mark: 
" He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved ; but he that 
believeth not, shall be damned." xvi, IG. Here, to believe, signi- 
fies to acknowledge the Lord, and to receive divine truths from 
him by means of the Word ; and to be baptized, is to be regenerated, 
by the Lord, by means of those truths. 

OF THE nOLY SUPPER. 

210. The holy supper was instituted by the Lord, to be a means 
whereby the church may have conjunction with heaven, and thus 
with the Lord ; it is, therefore, the holiest solemnity of divine 
worship. 

211. The manner in which such conjunction is efiected by the 
holy supper, is not understood by those who are unacquainted with 



HEAVENLY DOCTRINE. 41 

the internal or spiritual sense of the Word, since they do not think 
beyond the external sense, which is that of the letter. It is only 
from the internal or spiritual sense of the Word, that it can Ije 
known what is signified by the Lord's body and blood, and by the 
bread and wine ; and also what is signified by eating, 

212. In the spiritual sense, the Lord's body or flesh, and the 
bread, signify the good of love; the Lord's blood and the wine, 
the good of faith; and eating, appropriation and conjunction. In 
no other sense do the angels, who are attendant on man, when he 
receives the sacrament of the supper, understand those things ; for 
they perceive all things spiritually. Hence it is, that, on such 
occasions, a holy principle of love and of faith flows into man from 
the angels, thus through heaven from the Lord, and hence con- 
junction is efi'ected. 

213. From these considerations it is evident, that, when man par- 
takes of the bread, which is the body, he is conjoined to the Lord 
by the good of love, directed to him and derived from him ; and 
that, when he partakes of the wine, which is the blood, he is con- 
joined to the Lord by the good of faith, directed to him and de- 
rived from him. But it must be particularly observed, that con- 
junction with the Lord, by means of the sacrament of the holy 
supper, is effected with those alone who are influenced by the good 
of love to him, and of faith in him and from him. With these 
there is conjunction by means of this most holy ordinance; with 
others, there is indeed the Lord's presence, but Ho conjunction with 
him. 

214. Besides, the holy supper includes and comprehends the 
■whole of the divine worship instituted in the israelitish church ; for 
the burnt ofierings and sacrifices, in which the worship of that 
church principally consisted, were denominated by the single term 
bread; hence, also, the holy supper is the completion or fulness of 
that representative worship. 

OF THE RESURRECTION. 

223. Man Is so created that, as to his internal, he cannot die ; 
for he is capable of believing in and of loving God, and thus of 
being conjoined to God by faith and love; and to be thus conjoined 
to God is to live to eternity. 

224. This internal exists in every man that is born: his external 
is that by which he brings into effect the things which belong to 
his faith and love. The internal of man is the spirit, and the ex- 
ternal is the body. The external, or the body, is suited to the per- 
formance of uses in the natural world, and is rejected or put off at 
death ; but the internal, which is called the spirit, and which is 
suited to the performance of uses in the spiritual world, never dies. 
After death, this internal exists as a good spirit and an angel, if 
the man had been good during his abode in his world; but, if, 
during that time, he had lived in evil, he is, after death, an evil 
spirit. 

225. The spirit of man, after the dissolution of the bod}', appears 



42 PREFACE. 

in the human form, in every respect as in the natural world. lie 
enjoys the faculty of sight, of hearing;, of gpeaking, and of feeling, 
as he did in the world; and he is endowed with every faculty of 
thought, of will and of action, as when he was in the world ; in a 
word, he is a man in all respects, even to the most minute parti- 
cular, except that he is not encompassed with the gross body which 
he had in the world. This he leaves, when he dies ; nor does he 
ever resume it. 

22G. This continuation of life, is meant by the resurrection. The 
reason why men believe that they shall not rise again before the 
last judgment, when, as they suppose, the whole visible creation 
will be destroyed, is, because they do not understand the Word, 
and because sensual men place all their life in the body, and ima- 
gine that, unless the body be reanimated, the man can be no more. 

227. The life of man after death, is the life of his love and of his 
faith; hence the nature of his life to eternity is determined by the 
quality which had belonged to these during his life in the world. 
"With those who loved themselves and the world supremely, this 
life is the life of hell ; and with those who had loved God supremely, 
and the neighbor as themselves, it is the life of heaven. The latter 
are they who have faith; but the former are they who have no 
faith. The life of heaven is called eternal life, and the life of hell 
is called spiritual death. 

228. That man continues to live after the death of the body, is 
plainly taught in the Word: as when it is said, that God is not the 
God of the dead, but of the living (Matt., xxii, 31); that Lazarus, 
after death, was carried into heaven, and that the rich man lifted 
up his eyes in hell (Luke, xvi, 22, 23, and the following verses); 
that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are in heaven (Matt., viii, 11; 
xxii, 31, 32; Luke, xxii, 37, 38) ; and when Jesus said to the thief 
on the cross, To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise (Luke, 
xxiii, 43). 

OF HEAVEN AND HELL. 

230. There are two things which constitute the life of man's 
spirit, namely, love and faith; love constituting the life of his will, 
and faith, the life of his understanding. The love of good, and the 
faith of truth derived from good, constitute the life of heaven ; and 
the love of evil, and the faith of what is false thence derived, con- 
stitute the life of hell. 

231. Love to the Lord and love towards the neighbor constitute 
heaven; and so does faith, so far as it derives life from those loves. 
And as each of these kinds of love, together with the faith thence 
derived, is from the Lord, it is evident that the Lord himself con- 
stitutes heaven. 

232. Heaven is present with every man according to his recep- 
tion of love and faith from the Lord ; and they Avho receive heaven 
from the Lord during their abode in the world, are admitted into 
heaven after death, 

233. They who receive heaven from the Lord are they who have 



HEAVENLY DOCTRINE. 43 

heaven in them ; for heaven is in man, as the Lord teaches : " Nei- 
ther shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for the kingdom of God 
is within you." Luke, xvii, 21. 

234. The abode of heaven in man is in his internal part, thus in 
his willing and tliinking from love and faith, and thence in his ex- 
ternal, which consists in acting and speaking from love and faith. 
But heaven is not in man's external without being in his internal; 
for all h^'pocrites are capable of acting and speaking well, but they 
are incapable of willing and thinking Avell. 

235. On man's entering the other life, which takes place imme- 
diately after death, it is at once manifest whether heaven is in him 
or not ; but this is not so manifest while he lives in the world. In 
the world, the external appears, and the internal is concealed ; but, 
in the other life, the internal is made manifest, because man then 
lives as to his spirit. 

236. Eternal happiness, which is also called heavenly joy, is im- 
parted to those who possess love to the Lord, and faith in him de- 
rived from him ; for this love and faith have that happiness in them : 
and into the full enjoyment of it, the man who has heaven in him 
comes after death ; in the mean time it lies stored up in his internal 
man. In the heavens, there is a mutual participation of every good ; 
the peace, the intelligence, the wisdom and the happiness of all are 
communicated to each; yet to every one according to his reception 
of love and faith from the Lord. Hence it may be seen in how high 
a degree these enjoyments exist in heaven. 

237. As love to the Lord and love towards the neighbor consti- 
tute the life of heaven in man, so the love of self and the love of 
the world, when they reign, constitute the life of hell ; for the two 
latter loves are in direct opposition to the two former. Those, 
therefore, in whom the loves of self and of the world reign, are 
incapable of receiving any thing from heaven, so that what they 
receive comes from hell ; "for whatever a man loves, and whatever 
he believes, is either from heaven or from hell. 

238. Those in whom the love of self and the love of the world 
predominate, can form no conception of heaven and heavenly hap- 
piness; and it even appears incredible to them that happiness 
should be found in any thing but that in which they themselves 
delight. Nevertheless, the happiness of heaven enters the soul 
only in proportion as the loves of self and the world, regarded as 
ends, are removed ; and the happiness which succeeds on their 
removal is so great, as to exceed all human comprehension. 

239. The life of man cannot be changed after death, but must 
for ever remain such as it had been in this world; for the quality 
of man's spirit is in every respect the same as that of his love ; 
and infernal love can never be transcribed into heavenly love, be- 
cause they are in direct opposition to each other. ^ This is what is 
meant by the words of Abraham addressed to the rich man in hell: 
*' Between us and you there is a great gulf fixed ; so that they who 
would pass from hence to you, cannot; neither can they pass to us 
who would come from thence." Luke, xvi, 20. Hence it is evident, 
that all who go to hell, remain there to eternity; and that all who 
go to heaven, remain there to eternity. 



44 TREFACE. 

OF THE cnuRcn. 

241. That "v\hich constitutes heaven with man, also constitutes 
the church with him ; for, as love and faith constitute heaven, so they 
also constitute the church ; thus, from what has been already said 
concerning heaven, it may evidcntl}^ be seen what the church is. 

242. Tiie community amon^ whom the Lord is acknowledged, 
and the "Word exists, is called the church ; for the essentials of the 
church are love to the Lord and faith in him, both derived from 
him ; and the Word plainly teaches how man must live, in order 
that he may receive love and faith from the Lord. 

243. In order to the existence of a church, there must be doctrine 
formed from the Word, since, without doctrine, the AVord cannot 
be understood. Doctrine alone, however, does not constitute the 
church with man, but a life according to that doctrine: hence faith 
alone does not constitute the church with man, but the life of faith, 
which is charity. Genuine doctrine is the doctrine of charity and 
faith united, and not that of faith separate from charity. The doc- 
trine of charity and faith united, is the doctrine of life; but the 
doctrine of faith without that of charity, is not. 

244. They who are withovit the church, but, at the same time, 
acknowledge one God, and live according to the religious principles 
in which they have been instructed, and in a corresponding degree 
of charity towards the neighbor, are in communion with those who 
are within the church ; for no man who believes in God and lives 
well, is damned. Hence it is evident, that the church of the Lord 
exists in every part of the world, although specifically where the 
Lord is acknowledged, and where the Word is known. 

245. Every man in whom the church exists, is saved; but every 
man in. whom it does not exist, is condemned. 

OF THE SACRED SCRIFTURES, OR THE WORD. 

249. Without a divine revelation, man could know nothing of 
eternal life, or even of God; still less of love to God and of faith 
in him ; for man is born in utter ignorance, and must obtain all 
his knowledge, and form his understanding, from worldly objects. 
Moreover, man inherits by birth every evil proceeding from the 
love of self and the world; and the delights thence arising conti- 
nually prevail, and insinuate into his mind things which are dia- 
metrically opposed to whatever is of God, Hence it is, that man 
is naturally destitute of the knowledge of eternal life; and hence 
the necessity of a divine revelation, to communicate to him such 
knowledge. 

250. That the evils of the love of self and of the world induce 
such ignorance concerning the things which relate to eternal life, 
manifestly appears from the case of many within the church, the 
learned as well as the unlearned, who, although they know from 
revelation that there is a God, that there is a heaven and a hell, that 
there is etornal life, and that that life is to be acfpiired by the good 
of love and faith, still lapse into unbelief concerning those sulijects. 
Hence it is evident to what an awful extent ignorance would pre- 
vail, had no revelation been given. 



HEAVENLY DOCTRINE. 45 

251. Since, therefore, man lives after death, and even lives to 
eternity; and since the nature of his life to eternity is determined 
by that of his love and his faith; it follows that the Divine Being, 
in his love towards the human race, has revealed such things as 
may lead to that life, and conduce to man's salvation. What he 
has thus revealed, forms with us the Word. 

252. As the Word is a revelation from God, it is divine in all ita 
parts, and in every particular; for what proceeds from God cannot 
be otherwise. That which proceeds from God, descends through 
the heavens down to man; wherefore, in the heavens it is accom- 
modated to the wisdom of the angels who are there, and on earth 
it is accommodated to the apprehension of man. There is, there- 
fore, in the Word, an internal sense, which is spiritual, and suited 
to the capacity of the angels; and an external sense, which is 
natural, and is intended for man. Hence it is that the conjunction 
of heaven with man is effected by the Word. 

253. The genuine sense of the AVord is understood only by those 
who are enlightened ; and none are enlightened but those who have 
love to the Lord and faith in him : the interior perceptions of such 
are elevated by the Lord into the light of heaven. 

254. The Word cannot be understood in the letter, except by 
doctrine derived from it by one M'ho is enlightened ; for the literal 
sense of the Word is accommodated to the apprehension even of 
simple men: wherefore doctrine, drawn from the Word, must bo 
given them for a light. 

OF PROVIDENCE. 

267. The universal government of the Lord is called providence ; 
and, as the good of love and the truth of faith, by which salvation 
is effected, are wholly from him, and in no respect from man, it is 
evident that the divine providence extends over all, and regulates 
the most minute particulars of those things which conduce to the 
salvation of the human race. This grand truth the Lord himself 
teaches in John, where he says: " I am the way, and the truth, and 
the life." xiv, 6. And again: "As the branch cannot bear fruit 
of itself, except it abide in the vine ; no more can ye, except ye 
abide in me: for, without me, ye can do nothing.'' xv, 4, 5. 

268. The divine providence extends to the most minute parti- 
culars of the life of man : for there is only One Fountain of Life ; 
from whom we have our being, from whom we live, and from whom 
■we act; and that fountain is the Lord. 

269. They who think of the divine providence from worldly 
affairs, conclude that its operations are only of a general nature, 
and that particulars depend on human agency. But such persons 
are unacquainted with the mysteries of heaven, because they form 
their conclusions under the influence of the love of self and the love 
of the world, and of their gross delights. Hence, when they see 
the wicked exalted to honors, and acquire riches, more than the 
good, and success attend the artifices of which they avail them- 
selves, they say, in their hearts, that these things would not be so, 
if the divine providence were universally operative, and extended 



46 PREFACE. 

to every particular of the life of man — not considering that the 
divine providence does not regard that which is fleeting and tran- 
sitory, and which terminates with the life of man in this world; 
but that it regards that which remains to eternity, thus which has 
no end. Of that which has no end, it may be predicated that it is ; 
but of that which has an end, respectively, that it is not. Let him 
who is able consider, whether a hundred thousand years be any 
thing, when compared with eternity, and he will perceive that they 
are as nothing; what then are a few years of life in the world? 

270. Whoever rightly considers the subject may know, tiiat 
worldly rank and riches are not real divine blessings, although man, 
from the pleasure which they yield him, calls them so; for they 
pass away, and also seduce many, and turn them away from heaven. 
But that eternal life, and the happiness thence resulting, are real 
blessings, bestowed on man by the Lord, he himself plainly teaches 
in these words : " Provide yourselves bags which wax not old, a trea- 
sure in the heavens that faileth not, where no thief approacheth, 
neither moth corrupteth : for, where your treasure is, there will your 
heart be also." Luke, xii, 33, 34. 

271. The devices of the wicked are attended with success, because 
it is according to divine order, that, whatever man does, he should 
do in the free exercise of his reason, and from freedom of choice : 
unless, therefore, he were left to act according to his reason ; conse- 
quently, unless the artifices which he thence contrives were followed 
with succ;ess, he could in no wise be disposed to receive eternal life; 
for eternal life is insinuated into him when he is in a state of liberty 
and enlightened reason. No one can be compelled to do good, be- 
cause nothing forced is permanent with man — it not being his own : 
that alone becomes his which he does from liberty and in accordance 
with his reason. "What he does from liberty, is done from his will 
or love ; and the will or love is the man himself. If man were 
compelled to act contrary to his will, his thoughts would continually 
incline towards the dictates of his will. Besides, every one strives 
after what is forbidden, and this from a latent cause ; for every one 
strives to act from liberty. Hence it is evident, that, unless man 
were preserved in liberty, he could not be provided with good. 

272. To leave man to think, to will, and, so ftir as the law does not 
restrain him, to do evil, from his own liberty, is called permission. 

273. AVhen man is led, ]jy the success of artful schemes, to the 
enjoyment of happiness in the world, it appears to him as the result 
of his own prudence; when, at the same time, the divine providence 
incessantly accompanies him — permitting and continually with- 
drawing him from evil. But when man is led to the enjoyment of 
felicity in heaven, he knoAvs and perceives that it is not effected by 
his own prudence, but by the Lord, and is the result of his divine 
providence, disposing and continually leading man to good. 

274. That this is the case, man cannot comprehend from the 
light of nature ; for, from that light, he cannot understand the laws 
of divine order. 

275. Here it is to be particularly observed, that, besides pro- 
vidence, there is also proividence (foresight). (Jood is provided by 
the Lord J but evil is praevidcd. The one muat needs accompany 



HEAVENLY DOCTRINE. 47 

the other: for -what proceeds from man is nothing but evil, hut 
what proceeds from the Lord is "wiiolly good. 

OF THE LORD. 

280. There is one God, the creator and preserver of the universe; 
and, consequently, the God of heaven and of earth. 

281. There are two things which constitute the life of heaven in 
man, the good of love and the truth of fliith. Man derives this 
life from God, and in no respect or degree from himself; therefore, 
the primary principle of the church is, to acknowledge God, to 
believe in him, and to love him. 

282. They who are born within the church, ought to acknow- 
ledge the Lord, both as to his essential divinity and divine huma- 
nity, to believe in him and love him; because salvation is wholly 
from him. This the Lord plainly teaches in John : " He that bc- 
lieveth on the son, hath everlasting life ; and he that believcth not 
the son, shall not see life ; but the wrath of God abidoth on hini.'^ 
iii, 36. Again: " This is the will of Him that sent me, that every 
one who seeth the son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting 
life ; and I will raise him up at the last day." vi, 40. And again : 
"Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection and the life; he that 
believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live ; and who- 
soever iiveth and believeth in me, shall never die." xi, 25, 2G, 

283. They, therefore, who are within the church, and yet do not 
acknowledge the Lord and his divinity, cannot be conjoined to God, 
and thus cannot have any lot with the angels in heaven; for no one 
can be conjoined to God but from the Lord and in the Lord. That 
no one can be conjoined to God but from the Lord, the Lord teaches 
in John: " No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten 
son, who is in the bosom of the father, he hath declared him." i, 18. 
Again: " Ye have neither heard his voice at any time, nor seen his 
shape." V, 37. Again, it is said, in Matthew: "No man knoweth 
the son, but the father ; neither knoweth any man the father, savo 
the son, and he to whomsoever the son will reveal him," xi, 37. And 
again, in John: " I am the way, and the truth, and the life: no man 
Cometh unto the father but by me." xiv, 6. No one can be conjoined 
to God except in the Lord, because the father is in him, and they 
are one; as he teaches in John: " If ye had known me, ye should 
have knoAvn my fiither also. He that hath seen me, hath seen the 
father. Believest thou not that I am in the father, and the father in 
me?" xiv, 7 — 11. And again: " I and my father are one. That ye 
may know and believe that the father is in me, and I in him." x, 30, 38. 

284. Since, therefore, the father is in the Lord, and the Lord and 
the father arc one; and since the Lord must be lielieved in, and ho 
who believes in him is declared to have eternal life ; it plainly fol- 
lows, that the Lord is God. And that the Lord is God, the Word 
also teaches; as in John: "In the beginning was the Word, and 
the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were 
made by him ; and without him was not any thing made that Avas 
made. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us; and 
we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the father." 



48 PREFACE. 

i, 1, 3, 14. And In Isaiah: " For unto us a child is horn, unto us 
a son is given; and tlic government shall he upon his shoulder; 
and his name shall he called AVonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty 
God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace/' ix, 6. Again: 
" UehoM, a virgin shall conceive and hear a son, and shall call his 
name Immanuel, Avhich, being interpreted, is God-with-us/' vii, 14; 
Matt., i, 23. And in Jeremiah: "Behold, the days come, saith 
Jehovah, that I will raise unto David a righteous branch, and a king 
shall reign and prosper; and this is his name whereby he shall be 
called, Jekovah-our-rifjhteonsness." xxiii, 5, G ; xxxiii, 15, 10. 

285. All who are really members of the church, and enlightened 
by the light of heaven, see the divinity in the Lord; but they who 
are not tlms enlightened, can see in him nothing but the humanity ; 
while, at the same time, the divinity and the humanity are so united 
in him that they form a one. The Lord teaches this in John, where 
he says: " Father, all mine are thine, and thine are mine." xvii, 10. 

280. That the Lord was conceived by Jehovah, the father, and 
thus is God by virtue of such conception, is a truth well known in 
the church ; also, that he rose again with his whole body, for he 
left nothing of it in the sepulchre. In the belief of this, also, he 
afterwards confirmed his disciples, when he said to them, " Behold 
my hands and my feet, that it is I myself; handle me, and see; 
fur a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have." Luke, 
xxiv, 30. And, although he was a man as to flesh and bone, still 
he entered through the doors when they were shut; and, after he 
had manifested himself to the disciples, he became invisible." John, 
XX, 19, 20; Luke, xxiv, 31. With every mere man, the case is 
otherwise ; for he rises again as to his spirit alone, and not as to 
his body. When, therefore, the Lord said of himself that he was 
not as a'spirit, he plainly declared that he was not as another man. 
Hence it is evident, that the humanity of the Lord is divine. 

287. Every one derives the esse of his life, which is called his 
soul, from his father; the body is the existere of life thence pro- 
ceeding: hence the body is the effigy, or form, of its soul; and the 
soul, through the medium of the body, exercises at pleasure the va- 
rious activities of its life. Hence it is that men are born in the 
likeness of their parents, and that families are so readily distin- 
guished from each other. From this circumstance it may be seen 
of what quality the body or humanity of the Lord was; namely, 
that it was as the divinity itself, which was the esse of his life, or the 
soul from the father; on which account, he said: "Ue that hath 
Been me, hath seen the father." John, xiv, 9. 

288. That the divinity and the humanity of the Lord constitute 
one person, is in agreement with the faith received throughout the 
whole christian world; which, in effect, is this: that, " although 
Christ is God and man, still he is not two, but one Christ — one al- 
together, by unity of person. For, as the reasonable soul and flesh 
are one man, so*^ God and man are one Christ." These are the 
words of the athanasian creed. 

289. They who entertain, respecting the divinity, an idea of three 
persons, cannot, at the same time, have an i(h"a of one God ; for, if 
they even say that there is but one God, still they think of three. 



HEAVENLY DOCTRINE. 49 

Tlioy, however, who entertain the idea of three essentials, or prin- 
ciples, existing in one person, can, in reality, both profess their 
belief in one God, and think in agreement with such profession. 

290. The idea of three essentials existing in one person is at- 
tained, when the father is thought of as being in the Lord, and the 
holy spirit as proceeding from him. There is then perceived to be 
a irinitij in the Lord ; namely, the divinity itself, which is the father; 
the divine humanity, which is the son ; and the divine proceeding, 
which is the holy spirit. 

291. Since the whole divinity is in the Lord, to him belongs all 

I)ower in heaven and earth. This he teaches in John: " The father 
oveth the son, and hath given all things into his hand.'' iii, 35. 
Again: "As thou hast given him power over all flesh." xvii, 2, 
And in Matthew: " All things are delivered unto me of my father.^' 
xi. 27. Again: "All power is given unto me in heaven and in 
earth." xxviii, 18. This power is divinity. 

292. They who make the humanity of the Lord like that of an- 
other man, do not think of his conception from the divinity itself: 
nor do they consider that the body of every one is the effigy of the 
soul. Neither do such persons reflect on the Lord's resurrection 
with his whole body; nor on his transfiguration, when his face 
shone as the sun. Nor do they think respecting those things which 
the Lord said of faith in him, of his oneness with the father, his 
glorification, and his power over heaven and earth ; all which in- 
volve divine attributes, and were mentioned in relation to his hu- 
manity. Neither do they remember that the Lord is omnipresent 
even as to his humanity (Matt., xxviii, 20) ; although the belief of 
his omnipresence in the holy supper is founded on this fact; and 
omnipresence is a divine attribute. Yea, it is probably the case 
that they do not think that the divine principle, called the holy 
spirit, proceeds from the Lord's humanity ; when, nevertheless, it 
does proceed from his glorified humanity; for it is said, " The holy 
spi rit was not yet, because Jesus was not yet glorified." John, vii, 39. 

293. The Lord came into the world that he might effect the salva- 
tion of the human race, which must otherwise have perished in eter-. 
nal death. This salvation the Lord effected by the subjugation of the 
h.'Us, which infested every man coming into the world, and going 
out of the world ; and, at the same time, by the glorification of his 
huraanity : for thus he can keep the hells in subjection to eternity. 
The subjugation of the hells, and the glorification of the Lord's hu- 
manity at the same time, were effected by means of temptations 
admitted into the humanity which he derived from the mother, and 
by continual victories in those conflicts. His passion on the cross was 
the last of those temptations, and the completion of those victories. 

294. That the Lord subjugated the hells, he himself teaches in 
John, where, in the immediate prospect of the passion of the cross, 
he says : " Now is the judgment of this world ; now shall the prince 
of this world be cast out." xii, 3L Again: "Be of good cheer; 
I have overcome the world." xvi, 33. And in Isaiah : " Who is 
this that cometh from Edom, travelling in the greatness of his 
strength? I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save. Miuo 



50 PREFACE. 

own arm brought salvation to me. So he was their savior." Ixiii, 
1 — 8. That the Lord glorified his humanity, and that the passion 
of the cross was the last temptation, accompanied by complete vic- 
tory, through which the glorification was efi*ected, he teaches in 
John : " Therefore, when he [Judas] was gone out, Jesus said, Now 
is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God 
be glorified in him, God shall also glorify him in himself, and shall 
straightway glorify him." xiii, 31,32. Again: " Father, the hour 
is come ; glorify thy son, that thy son, also, may glorify thee." xvii. 
1, 5. And again : " Now is my soul troubled ; father, glorify thy 
name. Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both 
glorified it, and will glorify it again." xii, 27, 28. And in Luke : 
" Ought not Christ to have sufi'ered these things, and to enter into 
his glory ? " xvi, 26. These words were spoken in relation to the 
Lord's passion : to be glorified, is to be made divine. Hence it is 
evident, that, unless the Lord had come into the world, and been 
made man, and in this manner delivered from hell all who believe 
in him and love him, no mortal could have been saved ; and this is 
what is meant when it is said, that, without the Lord, there is no 
salvation. 

295. When the Lord had fully glorified his humanity, he then 
put ofi" the humanity derived from the mother, and put on a huma- 
nity derived from the father, which is the divine humanity : where- 
fore, he was then no longer the son of Mary. 

296. The grand and primary principle of the church is, to know 
and acknowledge its God ; for, without this knowledge and acknow- 
ledgment, there can be no conjunction with him ; thus, there can 
be none in the church without the acknowledgment of the Lord. 
This the Lord teaches in John : " He that believeth on the son, hath 
everlasting life ; and he that believeth not on the son, shall not see 
life ; but the wrath of God abideth on him." iii, 36. And in an- 
other place : " For, if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in 
your sins." viii, 24. 

297. That there is in the Lord a threefold principle, namely, the 
divinity itself, the divine humanity, and the divine proceeding, is 
an arcanum from heaven, and is revealed for the benefit of those 
wjio shall have a place in the Holy Jerusalem. 

OF ECCLESIASTICAL AND CIVIL GOTERNMEXT. 

311. There are two classes of affairs amongst men which ought 
to be conducted according to the laws of order ; namely, that which 
relates to the things of heaven, and that which relates to the things 
of the world. The former are called ecclesiastical, and the latter 
civil affairs. 

312. It is impossible that order can be maintained in the world 
without governors, whose duty should be, vigilantly to observe 
the proceedings of those who act according to order, and of those 
who act contrary to order, that they may reward the former and 
punish the latter. Unless this were done, the human race would 
inevitably perish. The desire of ruling over others, and of possess- 
ing their property, being hereditary iu every individual, and being 



HEAVENLY DOCTRINE. 51 

the source whence all enmity, envying, hatred, revenge, deceit, 
cruelty, and numerous other evils proceed; unless men, in the ex- 
ercise of their prevailing inclinations, were, on the one hand, re- 
strained by the fear of the laws and the dread of punishment, involv- 
ing the loss of honor, of property and of life, as the necessary con- 
sequences of a course of evil; and, on the other hand, encouraged 
by the hope of honor and of gain, as the reward of well-doing ; 
there would speedily be an end of the human race. 

313.^ Governors, therefore, are necessary for the preservation of 
order in the various societies of mankind ; and they ought to bo 
persons well skilled in the laws, men of wisdom, having the fear 
of God. There must also be order among the governors themselves ; 
lest any of them, from caprice, or ignorance, should sanction evils 
which are contrary to order, and thereby destroy it. This is 
guarded against by the appointment of superior and inferior rulers, 
among whom there is subordination. 

314. Governors appointed over those things amongst men which 
relate to heaven, or ecclesiastical affairs, are called priests, and their 
office is called priesthood. But governors set over those thing?) 
which relate to the world, or civil affairs, are called magistrates, 
and their chief, where such a form of government is established, is 
called the king. 

315. With respect to priests, their duty is, to teach men the way 
to heaven, and likewise to lead them therein. They are to teach 
them according to the doctrine of the church, which is derived from 
the AVord of God; and to lead them to live according to that doc- 
trine. Priests, or ministers, who teach the doctrine of truth, and 
lead their flocks thereby to goodness of life, and so to the Lord, 
are the good shepherds spoken of in the Word ; but they who only 
teach, and do not lead to goodness of life, and so to the Lord, are the 
bad shepherds. 

316. The ministers of the church ought not to claim to themselves 
any power over the souls of men, inasmuch as they cannot discern 
the real state of the interiors, or of the heart; much less ought they 
to claim the power of opening and shutting heaven, because that 
power belongs to the Lord alone. 

317. Dignity and honor ought to be paid to ministers on account 
of the sanctity of their office ; but they who are wise ascrilje all 
such honor to the Lord, from whom all sanctity proceeds, and not to 
themselves ; whereas, they who are not wise, attribute the honor 
to themselves, and take it from the Lord. They who claim honor to 
themselves on account of the sanctity of their office, prefer honor 
and gain to the salvation of souls, which is the object for which 
they ought above all things to provide: but they who attribute 
honor to the Lord, and not to themselves, prefer the salvation of 
souls to honor and gain. The honor of any employment is not in 
the person of him who is employed, but is only annexed to him on 
account of the dignity of the office in which he is engaged ; and 
what is so annexed, does not belong to the person, but to the em- 
ployment, being separated from the person when he is separated 
from the employment. All personal honor is the honor of wisdom 
and the fear of the Lord. 



52 PREFACE. 

318. Ministers ought to instruct the people, and to lead them, hy 
truths, to fj;ood of life; but, in matters of faith, they ought not to 
use compulsiion, since no one can ])C compelled to believe contrary 
to what he thinks in his heart to be true, lie who differs in opinion 
from the minister, ought to be left in the peaceable enjoyment of 
his own sentiments, provided he make no disturbance: but, when 
such a person disturbs the peace of the church, he must be sepa- 
rated; fur this also is agreeable to the order, for the sake of which 
the priesthood or ministry is established. 

319. As priests are appointed to administer those things which 
belong to the divine law and worship, so kings and magistrates are 
appointed to administer those things which belong to the civil law 
and judgment. 

320. Since the king cannot, by himself, administer all things, 
subordinate rulers are appointed, to each of whom a distinct pro- 
vince is assigned in the administration, where that of the king cannot 
extend immediately. These oflBcers, in their collective capacity, 
constitute the government — the king himself being the sovereign. 

321. The sovereignty itself is not in any person, but is annexed 
to the person. The king who believes that the sovereignty is in 
his own person, or the officer who supposes that the dignity of his 
office is in his own person, is not wise. 

322. The sovereignty consists in administering and in judging 
from justice, according to the laws of the realm. The king who 
considers the laws as superior to himself, is wise ; but he who con- 
siders himself as superior to the laws^ is not wise. The king who 
regards the laws as above himself, places the sovereignty in the 
law, and submits to its dominion ; he knows that the law is justice, 
and that all justice, which is really such, is divine: but he who 
considers himself as above the laws, places the sovereignty in him- 
self, and either believes himself to be the law, or the law, which is 
justice, to be derived from himself; hence he arrogates to himself 
that which is divine, and to which, at the same time, he ought to 
be in subjection. 

323. The law, which is justice, ought to be enacted, in the realm, 
by persons well skilled in legislation, men of wisdom, who fear God ; 
and both the king and his subjects, ought afterwards to live accord- 
ing to it. The king who lives according to the laws so enacted, 
and therein sets an example to his sul)jccts, is truly a king. 

324. The king who is vested with absolute power, and who be- 
lieves that his sul)jects are such slaves that he has a right to their 
possessions and lives, and exercises such imaginary right, is not a 
king, but a tyrant. 

325. The king ought to be obeyed according to the laws of tlie 
realm, and by no means to be injured either by word or deed; for 
on this depends the public security. 

So ends Emanuel Swedenborg's work ^' On the New Jerusa- 
lem, and its Ihavenli/ Doctrine, as revealed from Heaven." 
AVc have taken it from the London edition of 1841; the trans- 
lation of which, from the original latin, wc regard as much 
superior to that of any other wc have suen. 



SOME VIEWS 



FREEDOM AND SLAVERY 



CHAPTER I. 

An Argument in the United States' Senate, that African 
Slavery is a Civil and Political Blessing, answered, hy 
showing that it is a Civily Political, Moral, and Spiritual 
Evil, especially to the White 3Ian, although it may not, in 
the case of our Southern States, he a SiN. 

There is no word in the great vocabulary of universal lan- 
guage •which is so dear to the human heart Sisf'eedom! The 
cords of the soul which vibrate to its sound, go down the deep- 
est, spread the widest, and thrill the longest. The amount of 
human suffering and endurance to which the love of it impels, 
would be utterly incredible, if the voice of history and all out- 
ward observation did not find an echo in every human breast — 
bearing incessant living testimony to the eternal truth, '' Where 
your treasure is, there will your heart be also" ! Certain it is, 
there is nothing for which all true men will peril more, or strive 
harder, than to gain their liberties or secure their rights. The 
very stuff of their immortal natures, in every filament, is woven 
up from the fundamental principle, that " man is made to act 
in freedom according to reason.^' Hence, there is no subject 
more generally interesting than human freedom in contrast with 
human slavery. And yet there is hardly any subject, at the 
present time, which seems to be so imperfectly understood. It 
cannot, therefore, be amiss in us, who are so proud of our poli- 
tical liberties, and profess to be so abhorrent of slavery, to dis- 
cern rightly what is the true nature of both, and, by all and 
every efficient means, secure the one and get rid of the other. 

5* 



54 SOME VIEWS OF FREEDOM AND SLAVERY 

It is a very common impression in the present day, that the 
holding of human beings in forced or involuntary bondage is 
sin. Few are disposed to deny that it is an evil. For a time 
we imagined there were not any so disposed. But, attending 
the first session of the thirty-first congress, we heard it argued, 
in the senate of the United States, that african slavery is posi- 
tively a civil and political blessing, and no evil at all. The 
argument is, that the African in our slave states is better clad 
and fed than he was or would have been in his native land, or 
than the poor white man is in the northern states. If he is 
sick, his master affords him the best medical attendance ; and, 
in the decrepitude of old age, he is comfortably provided with 
shelter, raiment and food, without taxing his offspring with the 
heavy burden of his support. The Great Saviour has declared 
— as if to show a plain for the exercise of the highest christian 
virtues — ''The poor ye have always with you.'^ But a press- 
ing argument in favor of african slavery in this country now is, 
that it excludes all poverty, and all possibility of pauperism, in 
the South.* Wa^hear the exultation. There never was, there 
is not now, and there never will be, such a thing as a poor 
negro in that quarter of our country I A glowing contrast is 
drawn between black slavery in the South and the white slavery 
which grinding poverty produces in the North : and it is tri- 
umphantly exclaimed. Such a thing as white girls laboring in a 
northern factory and laying by their earnings for the support 
and comfort of their aged mothers, was never heard of in the 
slave states ! True : and is filial piety, or maternal love, those 
most loved and lovely features of free, upright and godlike hu- 
manity, as prominent and beautiful in the black females of the 
South as in the white females of the North? IIow do the 
blacks compare with the whites of the South in this respect? 
Are slave mothers more remarkable for maternal tenderness, or 
slave daughters for filial assiduity? Nay, is it not the greatest 
evil of slavery that it mars true humanity in the subjects of it? 
All human virtues are developed and strengthened by exercise. 
Human virtue, like the best steel, takes on the brightest polish 
from the hardest friction of contrary substance. Nor can there 
be any other satisfactory reason assigned why a good and mer- 
ciful God should permit poverty, sickness, pain, misery, or any 
other form of natural evil, to exist, than that it is the sole and 

* Of course, this can apply to only the slave population : for such are the 
deteriorutinf? etlccts of slavery on the poor whites and the free blacks, tliat 
these may be, heaven knows, poor enough in all conscience ! so that Chris- 
tians of the South need never be without a most ample licld for the exercise 
of their charities. 



IN THE LIGUT OF THE NEW JERUSALEM. 55 

indispensable means of working out, by the healthful exercising 
of its affliction, that ''far more exceeding weight of glory ^' 
which shines from the most resplendent spiritual virtuesT 

Suppose we grant, then, for argument, that the poor double- 
tasked hard-working white factory girl is in a less desirable 
physical condition — which is by no means unquestionable — than 
the fat glistening tow or linsey clad and pork and corn fed ne- 
gro, yet the latter cannot possibly have so perfectly formed in 
him those sweet and lovely features of humanity which become 
prominent in the bolder relief of the more fully developed filial 
and maternal affections. 

We once visited Charleston, South Carolina. While there, 
we learned that the little negroes are much addicted to eating 
dirt."^ This habit generates a disease which is very fatal to 
them. And, much to our astonishment, we were credibly in- 
formed, that, if the whites did not give their own most assiduous 
personal care and attention to these little negroes, they would, 
inevitably die from neglect of their black mothers ! — to such a 
degree do the maternal affections seem to have been blunted by 
slavery in the South ! 

And as to the motive which most strongly promptis the whites 

* It has been objected to the argument founded on this fact, by some of 
the readers of the tirst edition in Charleston, that the children of the poor 
whites are also addicted to the same vicious habit. But does not the habit 
in both cases come from the evil of slavery 1 Would it exist among the 
poor whites of the South, any more than it does among the same class of 
people in the North, or among the rich whites of the South, if slavery had 
not sunk the poor white man and his progeny even below the black man 
in the scale of humanity there 1 We contend that the disposition to eat 
dirt originates in the debasing effects of slavery — that this is the natural 
correspondent of the evil. For the food a man eats, the dress he wears, 
the house he lives in, his cultivation of the ground around it, and the labor 
he performs, all correspond to his mental, moral and spiritual quality, and 
his condition in life. Hence the clay-floored cabin of the slave, with its 
meagre and squalid furnishment. On this floor the little negro is left to crawl 
neglected, while the mother attends to her slavish duties : and, as there is a 
proneness in all very young children, especially when teething, to catch 
hold of and convej' to their mouths whatever comes in their way, this little 
negro grabs up the loose pieces of clay he may encounter, works them to 
his modth, and unfolds the inbred low propensity of his nature to eat it. 
And when the propensity is thus developed, the habit thus formed, among 
tlie blacks, then, by common influx from the spiritual world, they will be 
developed and formed among the poorer whites wherever their circum- 
stances and modes of living resemble those of the slaves— just as the yellow 
fever, when once originated in theWest Indies, or the cholera,when once ori- 
ginated in the East Indies, may break out in regions to which those diseases 
are not indigenous, whenever and wherever circumstances are presented 
favorable to their development. But where rational freedom reigns and 
forms the character and condition in life of the humblest and poorest mem- 
bers of the community, the mother's better manners and customs, in the 
nursing of her infant and tlie rearing of her child, will, as a general thing, 
prevent the development of, or correct, so morbid a propensity as that of 
eating dirt, if that should still be lying latent in the large remainders of its 
Lcreditary corruption. 



56 SOME VIEWS OF FREEDOM AND SLAVERY 

to take care of their slaves in this case, we see it in the words 
of our informant — '^ We are obliged to do it, sir, to preserve 
our property ! " Doubtless, many slaveholders, under the in- 
fluences of the christian religion, do perform acts of kindness 
to their slaves from higher principles than this. But forced 
bondage is not an institution of pure Christianity. This was a 
misty cloud, hanging densely and dankly over the fair face of 
nature, which the " Sun of llighteousness, with healing in his 
wings,'' arose to disperse. The service of the Lord is perfect 
freedom. The service of man is constrained obeisance to arbi- 
trary self-will. And the influences of Christianity upon slave- 
holders, therefore, are rainbow tints of spiritual grace projected 
on a dark ground of natural passion. In short, slavery is an 
institution of the natural man, who is governed by the loves of 
exercising power and possessing wealth. In the activity of the 
former of these passions, one portion of the human race are 
made slaves to another; and, in the activity of the latter, the 
slaves are taken care of from cupidity rather than benevolence. 
We resided some six years in a slave state, and we are not 
wholly wanting in that knowledge of the institution of slavery 
which personal observation and experience of its nature and 
tendencies afibrd. Now no observation is more common than 
that the masters sufier constant anxiety on account of the great 
carelessness of their slaves in taking care of their own health. 
They have no sole interest in the fruits of their own labor. 
The ordinary impulses of self-love, therefore, do not constrain 
their observance of reason's dictate, to preserve a sound body 
as the vehicle and instrument of a sound mind. The force of 
religious sentiment, or of gratitude for kindnesses received, in 
supplying the want of these natural motives by spiritual incen- 
tives to work, is rare — by no means universal. Slavery stabs 
the vitals of humanity here. The slave, as such, does not Jove 
work. Hence, the slave, as such, is constantly prone to find 
excuses for not working — to go lazily to the field, and to run 
with alacrity from it for any sort of pleasurable relaxation. It 
is a singular fact, that slaves rarely go to their morning corn 
fields in entire singing groups. They more frequently straggle 
thither singly, or in small and silent squads. It is only when 
their day's work is done, and they are returning home in the 
setting sun's refracted j^ellow ray, or the bland and mellow 
twilight of quiet eventide, that their harmonious refrain, or 
happy choral song, is heard ! It is only in corn-husking labor 
that frost gemmed and star bespangled night is far and wide 
made vocal with the fervid tones of joyous revelry ! To such 
work as this — to work that involves his own pleasure — the slave 



IN THE LIGHT OP THE NEW JERUSALEM. 57 

does indeed hie with alacrity. But to work that involves only 
his master's interest, he too often directs nought but reluctant 
steps. And he often regards even sickness as relaxation from 
toil. Hence he some times feigns sickness, and rarely takes 
the remedies for those slight indispositions, which, if neglected 
in their early stages, frecjuently terminate in fatal maladies. 
Consequently, the master has to keep a constant and anxious 
watch over his slaves, to guard them from unnecessary expo- 
sures to sickness — to see that they take their medicines when 
they are sick — to assure both them and himself of the fact, 
which the slaves themselves are somehow very slow to perceive, 
that they are well enough to return to work — and to take much 
other solicitous care to secure himself from both the loss of 
their labor and the loss of their lives. A fact within our own 
knowledge strikingly illustrates this circumstance of slavery. 
During our residence in Frankfort, Kentucky, from 1810 to 
1814, Dr. Eush's phlebotomising theory was in vogue. Then 
the negroes were anon feigning sickness, getting bled, and 
having an arm in a sling, so as to gain an exemption from 
work and enjoy a holiday. Among them was a fine mulatto, 
of great value to his master on account of his skill as a car- 
penter. The doctors used then to bleed with the spring lancet. 
The slave, for reasons best known to himself as a carpenter, 
preferred being bled in the right arm. In one of the oft re- 
peated venesections, an unskilful practitioner struck a tendon 
of the arm instead of, or together with, a vein. Inflammation 
supervened : and the consequence was, a stiiFening and contrac- 
tion of the right arm. The master, finding his usefulness gone, 
Bubjected the slave to a surgical operation. The doctor's shop 
in which it was performed, was next door to the ofiice in which 
we were employed. We witnessed the operation; and never 
shall we forget the poor mulatto's groans and exclamations of 
agony ! The physician — not a regular surgeon — failed to restore 
the arm. And the master, who would not have taken one thou- 
sand dollars fur him previously, sold his slave, for a compara- 
tively trifling price, a cripple for life I 

Yes, the master of the black slave has to physic him well in 
sickness, and also feed and clothe him well, and every way take 
care of him, in health. The master's interest lies in this. He 
is as much bound to take care of this species of his property as 
of any other. Nay, he owes to this species more care in pro- 
portion to its greater value. And if he takes care of his slave 
when he becomes valueless, — as the king of Prussia did of liis 
favorite superannuated war horses, — or if he extends to liis 
slaves, of all ages, and at all times, the various kindnesses of a 



58 SOME VIEWS OF FREEDOM AND SLAVERY 

benevolent and beneficent masterdom, it is but another evidence 
that the Lord of ]Mercy has permitted even the evil of slavery 
to exist, or turned it to good account, for the exercising and 
strengthening of noble virtues in those among -n'hom it unfor- 
tunately prevails. And this is precisely our view of it. But 
it is still an evil. It is an evil civilly, politically, morally and 
spiritually considered. AVe admit it is not a physical evil in 
respect to african slavery in this country considered relatively 
to the condition of the negroes in Africa before they were cap- 
tured, sold and deported as slaves. For we know that canni- 
balism reigned in Africa then, and that the wretched victims of 
victorious war would have been butchered, roasted and eaten 
by their savage captors, if Providence had not mercifully 
snatched them, as brands, from the burning, and permitted the 
slave trade to waft them to a civilized clime. Undoubtedly, 
then, the negro's physical condition is bettered here. And, as 
we shall show in the sequel, Africans were permitted, by the 
Divine Providence, to be brought hither as slaves for the pur- 
pose of bettering their moral and intellectual condition also. 
Uut this is the work of the Lord's overruling providence, which 
is "ever from" actual as well as '^seeming evil still educing 
good, in endless progression,'' and is not the effect of any inhe- 
rent property or quality of slavery. 

In answer, then, to the argument above noticed, we say, 
slavery is not, in our view, so much objected to on account of 
its being a physical evil to the black man, as on account of its 
being a civil, political, moral and spiritual evil to the white man. 
But let us not be understood to hold that slavery is in no 
respect physically an evil to the blacks. For, although, in the 
prior aspect above shown, slavery may not have been a physical 
evil to the negroes originally brought from Africa, it may be 
seen to be such, in its posterior aspect, in reference to their 
progeny, who were born slaves in this country, instead of being 
born freemen in their father-land. In our view, the making 
any man a slave must needs debase his whole nature — the 
nature of his body as well as of his soul; and the inborn slavish 
pravities of even his physical frame must always tend to stoop 
his higher nature. Hence the very initiative of an African's 
manumission is to cause him to be horn free. Consequently, 
we do indeed think that slavery, in its own specific tendencies, 
is also a physical evil to the blacks, when it is regarded in its 
posterior aspect, and relatively to their possible elevation as a 
race. For we know that the affections of the soul impart their 
forms and qualities to the blood, the flesh, and even the bones 
of the body. Medical men well know the influence of moral 



IN THE LIGHT OP THE NEW JERUSALEM. 59 

causes in producing and curing disease. A fit of clioler not 
unfrequently produces the jaundice. A mother, suckling her 
infant while her soul was upheaved from its deepest dregs by 
the tumultuous emotions of jealousy, has caused it to die in 
convulsions. The passion of her soul imparted its virulent 
qualities to her milk and poisoned her offspring ! The affections 
of an animal, too, give their quality to its flesh. The major part 
of a small village has been sickened by eating the beef of a 
maddened and hamstrung ox, killed in a fever, and sent to the 
shambles surcharged with its poisonous effects. The truth is, 
that the affections of the soul flow into the matter of the body, 
and so form its matter into correspondence with themselves, as 
to shed from it, and spread around it, an odor and sphere of their 
essential nature. This is the reason that the sphere of an ani- 
mal attracts, with grateful perception, those other animals whose 
affections are homogeneous to its own ; while it excites bristling 
antipathies in, and so repels, such animals as are of heteroge- 
neous natures : but this is especially the reason why the flesh of 
every animal has a quality determined by the nature and fit^te 
of its affections. All know how much the flesh of wild animals 
differs from that of tame. How much the meat on the breast 
of a wild turkey differs from that of a tame turkey's breast ! 
The venison of a deer raised in a park is almost mutton in 
comparison with the venison of a deer roaming and bounding 
free through the wild woods.* Who has not observed the supe- 
rior — firmer, mellower and juicier — quality of hams made from 
hogs that are suffered to run at large, and to feed on mast in the 
woods, during summer and autumn, with fattening, for a few 
frosty weeks, on corn, in large inclosures — in comparison with 
those flabby and greasy ones that are made from stye-raised 
hogs? And what produces the difference? It may be said 
that the kind and quality of food alone produce it. But why 
does not the same food make the same flesh in different animals ? 
And if different animals, feeding on the same food, have differ- 
ent flesh, according to their variant natures; why should not 
the same animals, feeding on the same food, have flesh of variant 
qualities, according to the different and opposite states of their 
nature? Can the peculiar affections of a hog have full and 
appropriate play in a contracted pen begrimed with its own 
filth ? and if a hog, in such a condition, were fed on corn, — the 
best food for making firm and sweet swine's flesh, — would not 
this strong feed generate fever, or other disease, for want of 
pleasurable exercise to work off its too strongly stimulating 

* " The hind is an animal of the forest, loving liberty more than any 
other animal." (A. C. 6413.) 



GO SOME VIEWS OF FREEDOM AND SLAVERY 

effects on the animarB muscular frame? Besides, we know that 
no food is appropriated by the body, unless the delight of the 
animal mind, descending into its organism, expands its minute 
vasicula, and causes them to suck up the food's nutritious par- 
ticles, with an avidity proportioned to the intensity of the de- 
light. This is the reason that a man's stomach does not digest 
his food when his mind is depressed with sorrow; it is also the 
reason why conviviality and merriment at table promote diges- 
tion. Hence the adage, "Laugh, and grow fat.'^* The true 
reason of the difference, then, must be, that the affection of the 
animal, roaming free in the enjoj-ment of its delights, gives 
better properties to its flesh, than can be found in the lazy and 
grunting obesity of stye-raised meat? And shall not the whole 
soul of freedom give a peculiar property to the very flesh of the 
freeman, while the stooped spirit of forced bondage imparts an 
equally marked, though diflferent, characteristic quality to the 
very flesh of the slave ? 

So of the forms of the body and the contour of the face. 
Contrast the physical frame of english gentlemen with that of 
the vast crowds which the huge manufactories of Manchester 
disgorge, and with which they flood certain streets, about noon. 
"What else produces the difiercnce, than the greater freedom and 
delight in the condition and modes of life of the one, and the 
greater servitude and misery in the condition and modes of life 
of the other? The same contrast may be made between their 
gentry and the foreign laborers who work on our railroads and 
canals. Freedom and slavery have each their peculiar type. 
And not more does the full blooded racer, or arab steed, in 
comparison with the mongrel dray horse, show the quality of 
his free spirit in his form and action, than does freedom show 
itself in the forms and habitual actions of the white and red 
men, while slavery stamps its signet in the black wax, or carves 
its peculiar form in the ebony, of the bondaged and drudging 
African. Hence we verily believe that the little negro's pro- 
pensity to eat dirt is both the effect and the evidence of slavery's 
being a physical evil. And how it is a moral evil, is shown by 
its dehumanizing or unhumanizing efi'ects on the little negro's 
mother. 

But that slavery is a civil and spiritual, as well as a physical 
and moral, evil to the black man, is manifest from some of its 
other peculiarly and distinctively unhumanizing efi'ects. The 
most peculiar human principle — that which makes man most 
like God — is the faculty of providence and providence. By 

* These additional observations have been elicited by friendly objections 
to preceding poaitions iu the lirst edition. 



IN THE LIGHT OP THE NEW JERUSALEM. 61 

this, man looks ahead, and provides in the present for the wants, 
the comforts and the pleasures of the future. Now slavery puts 
the axe to this root of humanity, by making the slave improvi- 
dent. The necessities of his condition do not develop this 
faculty in him by exercise. His master foresees and provides 
for him. He thus learns to live from hand to mouth. And 
hence, although he multiplies his species more rapidly as a slave, 
and enjoys a superior elevation of character while under the 
magnetic sphere and protecting regis of his white owner, yet 
he becomes incapacitated to bear the weightier responsibilities, 
and discharge the higher duties, that would devolve on him as 
himself a freeman. So that, when african slavery is precipi- 
tately abolished, without a proper qualification of the slave for 
freedom, in a previous and gradual development of this truly 
human principle of providence and providence, the blacks 
generally decrease in numbers, deteriorate in character, and 
become less felicitous in social condition. Observation and 
experience in the northern states — especially in Pennsylvania — 
prove the truth of this remark. So that, while the African 
remains thus a slave, his condition is, undoubtedly, better, as 
such, than it would be, if he were suddenly manumitted in this 
country. 

But, so far as humanity is concerned, this effect of slavery 
upon the African, proves it to be an evil. And that it is 
civill}' and politically such, every rightly observant and acutely 
discerning man, who, in descending the Ohio river, studies the 
different aspects of the state of Ohio on the one side, and of the 
states of Virginia and Kentucky on the other, must be satisfied. 
That it is an evil to the African permitted here for the ultimate 
greater good of his race elsewhere, we believe and admit. Still 
it is an evil — a moral, civil and political evil — to him here. 
And that slavery, as it now actually exists in the South, is a 
spiritual evil to the black man, is sufficiently evident from the 
fact, that the preservation of the institution there, compels his 
master to interdict to him that education, and that action in 
high functions, which are indispensable for the right develoi^- 
meut of his immortal powers. AYe do not, however, think that 
existent african slavery in our southern states is to be regarded, 
nor our southern brethren to be vituperated on account of it, as 
a heinous sin — for reasons which we shall give in the close of 
the next chapter. 

We argue, then, that slavery is a more especial evil to the 
whites. No nation or community of intelligent men can force 
or receive an inferior race of their fellow-men into servile 
bondage, without virtue going out of them. The superior race 

G 



62 SOME VIEWS OF FREEDOM AND SLAVERY 

inevitably loses a portion of its spiritual caloric by the contact ! 
The very act of making a black man his slave, or imperiously 
holding him as such, is an evil to the white man, because it 
debases thepn*;?c//>/e of his action, and so lowers the standard 
of humanity in himself. 



CHAPTER II. 



The same suhject continued, in an effort to sJiow, tJiat Slaveri/ 
is an Evil to the White Man, because it debases his Huma- 
nity, first, by develojnnj and strengthening in him an Arbi- 
trary and Domineering Spirit, and, second, by making 
Labor disreputable among the Whites. Still, Slavery in 
our Southern States may not be SiN; but must be regarded 
as a Chronic Constitutional Disease, which entitles our 
Southern Brethren to our Kind Consideration, and imposes 
on us the Duty of Co-operation with them in gradually get- 
ting rid of it as an Hereditary Evil. 

Life in time is a probation for life in eternity. "Whatever prin- 
ciples a man acts from in this mundane sphere, determine his form 
and quality in that spiritual and celestial empyrean which is 
his soul's proper home. Consequently, all true elevation or de- 
pression of human character must be measured on the scale 
that marks the intervals between the upper and nether extremes 
of man's spiritual and celestial or sensual and animal natures. 
And whatever develops and strengthens by exercise the ruling 
passions of the one, must be formatively and actively evil; and 
whatever develops and strengthens by exercise the ruling affec- 
tions of the other, must be formatively and actively good. 
Now our argument is, that slavery in the South, so far as its 
own inherent tendencies are considered, is an evil, because it 
debases the character of the poor white man, and makes the 
white property-holder naturally proud instead of spiritually 
humble. It generates in the rich white man a haughty chivalry 
and a proud sense of belligerous honor, instead of a spirit of 
christian meekness, and that manly forbearance under injury, 
and persistence in doing good despite of wrong, which charac- 
terized that all-perfect type of pure humanity the Divine Saviour 
of the World. 

By nature, man's grand master passion is the love of him- 
self, which primarily manifests itself in the delight of exercising 



IN THE LIGHT OP THE NEW JERUSALEM. G3 

dominion over other persons, and secondarily in the delight of 
possessing all valuable things. For, in the possession of these, 
self expects to secure that respect, deference and service from 
others, which it Joves. To the activity of this master passion, 
in its two chief forms of love of power and love of wealth, must 
be ascribed those false notions of honor, of glory, of fame, and 
of respectability in the abject dependence and service of others, 
which prompt nations to war and conquest, and individuals to 
overreaching, fraud and oppression. And in the train of these 
follow all mortal pains and miseries. In short, however men 
may gild or polish them by outside and factitious amenities, 
the love of money is the root^ and the love of rule is the 8ap^ 
of all evil. These passions, then, indigenous to all men in their 
state by nature, are both essentially and formally evil^ when- 
ever they become 'principle?, of the mind. 

But it may be asked. What do you mean by a principle of the 
mind ? A principle of the mind is whatever a man proposes to 
himself as the final end of his action. Hence, wdien a man 
proposes to himself power and wealth as ends, — that is, seeks 
and obtains them for their own sakes, and without the end of 
use to others, — he acts from evil principles, which are the op- 
posites and antagonists of love to God and charity to the neigh- 
bor.* But when those principles, by reformation and regene- 
ration, are subordinated to these, they become relatively good. 
In other words, when the love of power and the love of wealth 
react ordinately on the love of God and the love of the neighbor, 
so as to serve as means for the attainment of their ends, they 
partake of the quality of the ends to which they are subservient, 
and are good and not evil. These natural loves, when separated 
from those spiritual loves, are like the rod of Aaron when cast 
from him upon the earth — a crawling venomous serpent : but, 
when subordinate and subservient to them, they are like that 
serpent taken up by Moses — a staff, support or power in the 
hand of the spiritual man.*]" 

* " If a man regards self and the world as ends, let him know that he is 
infernal; but if he regards the good of his neighbor, the general good, the 
Lord's kingdom, and especially the Lord himself, let him know that he is 
celestial." (A.C. 19U9.)— " All evils and falsities come from worldly, terres- 
trial and corporeal loves, when they prevail." (A. C. 10.49^?.) 

t " Corporeal and sensual things are in themselves merely material, inani- 
mate and dead; but they are made alive by the delights which come from 
the interiors in their orderly arrangements. Hence it appears that, ac- 
cording to the quality of the life of the interiors, such is the delightsome- 
ness of pleasures, inasmuch as in delight there is life. The delight wherein 
there is good from the Lord, is alone a living delight; tor, in such case, it 

has life from the essential life of good. Some suppose that whosoever 

wishes to be happy in the other life, ought by no means to live in the 
pleasures of the body and of sensual things, but to refuse all such enjoy- 
ments ; and they urge, in favor of this notion, that corporeal and worldly 



G4 SOME VIEWS OF FREEDOM AND SLAVERY 

By that reformation and regeneration in which man is gifted 
with a new nature from the Lord, man's sublime master passion 
is the supreme love of God, which generates disinterested lovo 
to mankind. Love to Grod is the groat right side, and love to 
mankind is the great left side, which, uniting in the median 
line of universal usefulness, form the perfect symmetry of divine 
humanity. These arc spiritual, celestial and divine loves, which 
actuated man in his pristine state, or golden age, of purity and 
bliss. And as his fall consisted in his gradually ceasing to act 
from these, and, in long process of time, coming to act wholly 
from those natural, sensual and corporeal loves, as principles, 
so his restoration must consist in a free and rational reinversioa 
of his state. In this rein version, the natural loves of power 
and wealth are not to be destroyed as absolutely evil, but are 
to be put from the centre off to the circumference, as evil rela- 
tively. While they ordinately react in the circumference on 
love to God and love to man in the centre, they are in order. 
And it is only when they rush to the centre, so as to shove 
those heavenly loves to the circumference, that they are in dis- 
order, and thus evil. As, then, these natural loves arc good 

things draw off and detain the mind from spiritual and celestial life. But 
they who suppose so, and, in consequence thereof, resign tlicmselves up 
voluntarily to miseries wliilst they live in the world, are ignorant of the 
real truth in the case. It is by no means forbidden any one to enjoy tlie 
pleasures of the body and of sensual things; that is to say, the pleasures 
arising from the possession of lands and money ; the pleasures arising from 
honors and otlices in tlie state; the pleasures of conjugial love, and love 
towards inl'ants and children; tJie pleasures of fricndsinp and of social in- 
tercourse ; the pleasures of hearing, or of the sweetnesses of singing and 
music ; the pleasures of sight, or of beauties, which are manilbld — as hand- 
some raiment, weU-furnisiied houses, beautiful gardens, and the like — which 
things are delightful by reason of the harmony contained in them ; the 
pleasures of smelling, or of the sweetness of odors; the pleasures of taste, 
or of the agreeablcness and usefulness of meats and drinJvs ; and tlie plea- 
sures of touch : for these are the extreme or corporeal allections, wJiich 
have their origin, as was said, from the interior allections. Tlie interior 
affections which are alive, all derive their delight from goodness and truth ; 
and goodness and truth derive their delight from charity and laith ; and, in 
this case, Irom the Lord ; consequently, from the very essential lile. Where- 
fore, the allections and pleasures winch have this origin are alive. And 
whereas genuine i)leasures are from such source, they are never denied to 
any one; yea, when they are derived from tliat source, then their delight 
indchnitely exceeds the deligJit whicJi is from any otiier source, and vvhicli 

is rcsijectively lilliiy and denied. That tlie pleasures above mentioned 

are by no means denied to man,— yea, so far from being denied, that they 
then lirst become pleasures when tliey are derived from their true ori- 
gin, — may further api)ear from this consideration, that very many who 
lived in the world in power, dignity and opulence, and who enjoyed 
abundantly all pleasures, both of the body and of the things of sense, are 
among the blisstd and hai)py in heaven; and with them the interior de- 
lights and happiness are now alive; because such delights and happiness 
had their source in the good things ol'charity and the truths of liiith towards 
the Lord: and, tieriving i)leasure from charity and laith towiirds the Lord, 
they regard tlieui all with a vuvv to use, which was their end in the enjoy- 
ment of them: for it was use itself which was to them most delighlfulj 
aoici hence came the delight of their pleasures." (A. C. i){)d.) 



IN THE LIGHT OF THE NEW JERUSALEM. 65 

when in order, and only become evil when in disorder, we are 
enabled to discern the great truth, that all evil is perverted 
good. 

But neither good nor evil can be seen distinctly except from 
its opposite. Having, therefore, discerned the nature of a 
principle, what evil is, and what is a principle of evil, we are 
brought clearly to see what good is, and what is the principle 
of good. And, as true humanity is good in form and activity, 
we can also see, most clearly, what elevates, and what depresses, 
humanity in mankind. By the law of opposites, love to God 
and charity to the neighbor are good. And the principle of 
good is man's acting with a final end to good; that is, his 
doing good for goodness' sake. '' God is love," and '^ God is 
light.'' God is goodness itself, and God is truth itself. And 
the essential life of love is to do — to do good by and according 
to truth. Love is spiritual heat, as truth, or wisdom, is spi- 
ritual light; and love in and by wisdom creates and sustains 
the whole spiritual world, as the heat of our sun in and by its 
light creates and sustains the whole material world. Further 
as the material sun is produced by and corresponds to the sun 
of heaven, in which, as a sphere of his love and wisdom, the 
Lord is, therefore, the heat and light of our material sun are 
but the discrete production of divine love and divine wisdom, so 
as to make these divine principles constitute, contain, vivify and 
sustain the whole material universe, or macrocosm, and man as 
the microcosm. Thus it is, that '' in God we live, and move 
and have our being;" and that ^'he who dwelleth in love, 
dwelleth in God, and God in him." Since, then, love and light, 
or goodness and truth, are God, because the essence and form 
of God; and since the essence of love is to regard goodness as 
an end, and the life of love is to do good for goodness' sake; 
therefore, to do what is good and true for the sake of goodness^ 
and truth, is to love God : and the form and action correspond- 
ing to this love, is true humanity. Consequently, true huma- 
nity is depressed and marred by whatever impairs this form 
and degrades this action. 

" Charity* is an affection of being serviceable to others, 
without having respect to any recompense" — thus is diame- 
trically opposed to selfishness and its domineering and possess- 
ing propensities. " The neighbor, towards whom charity is to 
be exercised, is all in the universe, but still cacli with discri- 
mination" as to the good that is in him. Thus, ''to love the 
Lord and the neighbor is, in general, to perform uses." And 
hence the divine law, that he is the greatest of all who is the 

Charitas, spiritual love— not mere alms-giving. 
6* 



CO SOME VIEWS OF FREEDOM AND SLAVERY 

servant of all. The Lord himself came not to be ministered 
unto, but to minister. 

Now hnmanlti/ is th.e form of God, because it is goodness 
forming itself in truth, and becoming active by truth. Hence, 
as God-with-us, the AVord, which was with God and was (rod, 
made flesh, Divinity in Humanity, and thus True and Good 
Humanity Itself, came to minister in doing good to others, 
therefore, the true dignity of humanity is to serve; and the 
post of true honor is the rendering useful services to others. 
Consequently, humanity is elevated by useful service, and de- 
pressed by imperious sway. And, as the essential principle of 
true humanity is the acting "in freedom according to reason," 
therefore, the most perfect man is he who has the highest 
intelligence guiding the most virtuous will in the most widely 
extended usefulness to all other men; while the most imperfect 
man is he who has the lowest int^jlligence, without any rational 
will of his own, but who is forced to obey the mandate, subserve 
the will, and be guided by the reason, of some other one man, 
in promoting his interests, just as the mere animal does. 

AVherefore, as that is an evil which depresses humanity, 
african slavery in this country is an evil, because it is the forced 
or involuntary service of one or a few, instead of the free or 
voluntary service of all or many. In short, african slavery in 
this country is an evil, because it tends to make the master 
more a natural man, and the slave more an animal. 

From these premises we deduce the conclusion, that slavery 
is an evil, because it mars true humanity in two chief respects : 
it develops and strengthens by exercise the love of dominion 
from the love of self, and it makes labor disgraceful among the 
whites. 

First, African slavery in this country is an evil, because it 
develops and strengthens by exercise the love of dominion from 
the love of self, or develops and strengthens an arbitrary and 
domineering spirit in the white man. Any person who has 
lived in a slave state, must have observed that such is the efi'ect 
of slavery on the slaveholder's offspring. The little white learns 
to domineer over the little black, in ordering him about, buf- 
feting him, and making him bend wholly to his will and pleasure 
as his prospective property. It is seen in the tones of voice, 
and in every gesture and motion of the body, with which he 
speaks and acts to the little slave. Hence, as we have before 
said, comes pride, — which is contempt of others in comparison 
with self, — a false sense of honor, a most quick proclivity to 
resent injuries, and a supercilious and anti-christian haughtiness 
to inferiors, which never can be compensated by that case of 



IN THE LIGHT OF THE NEW JERUSALEM. 67 

manners, and polisli of intellectual refinement, in intercourse 
■with equals, which exemption from low labor and the appliances 
of leisure and learning impart to the wealthy slaveholder. AYe 
grant that this principle may elaborate from human nature, as 
now constituted, the higher order of minds in the military and 
naval professions, or in the executive departments of govern- 
ment : but this is because mankind in the mass are now sunk 
into a mostly natural state, and require the government of 
natural passions individually and of natural men collectively ; 
and it is, as we think, the chief evil characteristic of human 
slavery, that it develops in the master the natural, in antago- 
nism to the spiritual, love of rule — which natural love, when 
not subordinated, is, as we have shown, selfish and worldly, 
and therefore evil : for " the desire to bear rule is somewhat 
of human proprium different from what is received of the Lord : 
nevertheless, all [spiritual] rule [such as that of the angels, or 
of the Lord] is of love and mercy loitliout a desire to bear rule." 
(A.C. 1755.) 

Secondly, African slavery in this country is an evil, because 
it makes labor disgraceful or disreputable among the whites. 
In this respect, it is more especially a civil and political evil. 
But it is also, in this respect, an essentially aristocratic and 
anti-republican institution. And we will add, it is, in this 
respect, essentially anti-christian. For, as we have shown, it 
is the spirit of Christianity to make useful service honorable, 
and thus to elevate in the scale of respectability the agricultural, 
commercial and mechanic arts. But it is the direct tendency 
of slavery to make those professions which enjoy exemption 
from physical labor the most respectable. The possessor and 
enjoyer of wealth is always more honorable in slave countries 
than the maker and profitable user of v»"ealth. Hence slavery 
must be regarded as a civil evil, because all the best and most 
enduring civil interests of a community rest on the ground of 
the citizen's engaging and continuing in useful callings with a 
final end to the good of society, and not for the purpose of 
making a fortune, with the view of retiring at last from business 
and enjoying the respectability, the luxury or the pleasure which 
wealth gives. 

But that this disparagement of a man because he pursues a 
mechanical calling, is against the spirit of Christianity, and is a 
spiritual evil in its influence on the church, may be known from 
the simple flict, that it induced the Jews, in the time of our 
Lord's first advent, to disparage, if not to reject, him, because 
he was a carpenter's son. 

And how this making a mechanical calling disreputable^ or 



68 SOME VIEWS OP FREEDOM AND SLAVERY 

this making labor disgraceful, is a political evil, in its influence 
on the commonwealth, any discerning man can see at a glance. 
For instance, in case of the sons of the wealthy, who are not 
stimulated by ambition to shine in the spheres of literary, pro- 
fessional or political preeminence, and are unfortunately more 
impelled by the natural love of pleasure than by the spiritual 
love of use, this degradation of labor throws them into the 
spheres of gambling and dissipation. 

" All heaven is a continent of uses.'^ And so far as men on 
earth are engaged in doing uses from heavenly ends, they 
breathe and pulsate with heaven, and have the sphere of heaven 
around them for their protection from the assaults of vagrant 
and libidinous spirits. Hence, one of the chief safeguards of 
young men from vice, is useful employment. But, where use- 
ful labor is disreputable, genteel young men are ashamed to 
engage in it, because they lose caste in such occupation. And 
the energies of their minds, needing excitement for their plea- 
surable development, draw them to the race course, the billiard 
table, the cock pit, the gambling club room, the carousal, or 
other nameless places of resort, for the killing of time, which 
hangs so heavy on the man who finds life only in the vortices 
of pleasure or the rounds of fashionable society. 

As we have seen, when the sensuous things of pleasure, to- 
gether with games of chance and athletic sports, are occasionally 
enjoyed as relaxations from useful labor, or unbending recrea- 
tions of the mind, which enable it to return to its mental, 
oflScial or business occupations with renewed vigor, they are 
subservient to use, and so useful and proper themselves. But, 
"when they are made the sole objects of life, they dissipate all 
of man's truly virile powers, and destroy or enervate his soul. 
At least, the exclusive pursuit of them unfits young men for 
any high service of the commonwealth. And, in this case, the 
community suffers the loss of the valuable executive services, 
of some of her sons of the best genius, in stations of high trust 
atid responsible function. 

So, too, in the case of poor white men and their offspring, 
the community loses a great fountain of her wealth and pros- 
perity in the want of that superior quality and richer quantity 
of productive services, which results from the destitution of the 
stimulus of an lionorahle calling acting as a premium in draw- 
ing out the higher order of agricultural, mechanical, or com- 
mercial, abilities. As man always stamps the form of his own 
quality upon his work, be it what it may, how is it possible 
that the community can be so much enriched or benefited by 
the productions of degraded slave labor in agriculture, for ex.- 



IN THE LIGHT OF THE NEW JERUSALEM. 69 

aniple, as by the productioDs of the dignified labor of men of the 
higher order of intellectual power and moral worth ! 

In view of this, no one need hesitate for a moment in ac- 
counting for the fact that capital and population, with their 
political influence, have increased in a vastly greater ratio in 
our northern, than in our southern, states. And most empty is 
the hypothesis, that, if southern capital had been kept in the 
South, and not drained from it by tariff restrictions, european 
immigration would have prevailed more at the South, instead 
of occurring wholly at the North, so as to have preserved there 
an equilibrium of political power. For never will free white 
men, however unpropitious their physical or political condition, 
migrate to a country where slavery has made their labor dis- 
graceful and their arts or handicrafts disreputable. White men 
will indeed go to slave states, and labor in commercial or me- 
chanical callings, with a view of getting rich and enjoying their 
wealth elsewhere, or with a view to become themselves slave- 
holders, and to acquire the respectability which wealth gives, 
in the South : but this is an exception to the general rule, which 
only confirms it; for it proves that those callings are disrepu- 
table in comparison with slaveholding wealth and otiiim cum 
dignitate.^ They never would go thither to pursue those call- 
ings with a sole view to the use of them, and to the community's 
good in thoir faithful and eflficient continued pursuit of them. 
They never would go thither, if they were sure that they should 
always remain in those callings where their wives and daughters 
would not be visited by resj^ectahle people because their hus- 
bands and brothers were mechanics. Or the number of such 
persons migrating to slave states would be very small in com- 
parison with the number of them coming to free states. And 
the reason is very obvious. For most of the emigrants from 
Europe hope and expect to rise to a higher and better relative 
position in society by coming to this country; and there is no 

* It is conceded, that the principles of self-love and love of the world 
have this same aristocratic tendency every where. Hence, in the free 
states, they generate invidious distinctions in society, by wliich the mem- 
bers of the common body are arrayed against one another in the most 
unhappy, and some times the most latal, antagonism. They generate an 
aristocracy of wealth there too ; and also a disparaging estimate of the 
mechanical callings. But they do not do it there in so great a degree as 
in the slave states; and we argue that the institution of human slavery, as 
an exciting or determining cause, has more directly and inevitably this 
tendency. Whereas Christianity, regarding all professions and callings as 
uses of one common body, which "is not one member, but many," that 
tend, by their mutual relations and their various adaptations to the com- 
mon good, to the pertiection of the whole, esteems " much more those mem- 
bers of the body, which seem to be more feeble, as necessary ; and upon 
those members of the body, which we think to be less honorable, she 
bestows more abundant honor." (1 Cor., xii, 12 — 27.) 



70 SOME VIEWS OF FREEDOM AND SLAVERY 

country in the world where what is called the middling class in 
other countries is so respectable as in the free states of our 
union. It is made so by the institutions of freedom; particu- 
larly by common school education, which is interdicted to the 
slaves in the slave states, and never can be extended, with any 
practically beneficial effects, to the poor whites there, on ac- 
count of that pride which makes the poor white man scorn to 
owe the education of his child to the rich man's alms, or makes 
him prefer to see his child grow up in ignorance rather than 
send him to a school where the institutions of society have 
generated an invidious distinction between the children of the 
poor and the children of the rich. A similar cause prevents 
the introduction of our common and free school system into 
Great Britain. The various grades of aristocratic distinction 
prove an insuperable barrier to its introduction into that coun- 
try. It has been introduced into Prussia; but future history 
is to tell, whether it is not even now leavening its whole lump, 
and whether it will not in time produce radical changes in the 
Prussian monarchy. Certainly no where, but in our free states, 
is the sublime political spectacle so fully and clearly presented, 
of the education of all classes of their citizens on one common 
plain, or of th*^. erection of so high a standard of education for 
what is elsewhere denominated the middling class. And this 
incalculably greater political advantage especially induces foreign 
emigrants to come to our northern states in preference to our 
southern. They seldom think of migrating to states where 
the owners of land stand at the top of the social ladder, and 
the workers of land are drudging slaves at the bottom; and 
all rounds for resj^ectahle middle classes are excluded, or con- 
fined to cities and large towns, by this worse than feudalism; 
and thus where slavery not only disparages mechanical pursuits, 
but also excludes, in gancral, from the community, the small 
landholder, who tills with his own hands the soil he owns, and 
therefore has a more stimulating interest in developing the 
utmost productive powers of the whole land for the greater 
wealth and prosperity of the whole body politic. 

The inherent and legitimate eifect of slavery is, then, we 
repeat, to degrade labor in general. Look at its effect on the 
poor white agriculturalists, who roam through the pine lands that 
intervallate the sea coast and the mountain regions of the Caro- 
linas, and spend more than half their time in fishing and hunting, 
rather than be yoke-fellows with negroes in tilling the soil. Wit- 
ness the contempt which the Bedouin Arab feels for the cultiva- 
tor of the earth.* lie only regards him as the bald eagle does 
* See Lyna/is Expedition to the Dead Sea.—'^ The Bedawin, in their in- 



IN THE LIGHT OF THE NEW JERUSALEM. 71 

the fish-Iiawk.* The poorest specimens of white humanity that 
we ever laid our eyes on, were the country people who came in 
with their produce to the Charleston market. 

But the effect of slavery in making useful labor disreputable, 
is best seen in the slaves' own estimation of those who are 
obliged to pursue it for a livelihood. It is well known that the 
slaves look upon the poor whites as beneath them. Even in 
Maryland,! ^® know how difficult it is for poor whites to get 
black servants, that- are worth having, to work for them. The 
genteel negroes have an utter contempt for what they call ^^ the 
poor luhite trash" ! They would rather starve, and work their 
fingers to the quick, in the service of white gentility, than live 
on the fat of the land in the families of those whom they 
esteem disreputable mechanics. This is the fact in general; 
and it renders more intensive the evidence that slavery makes 
labor disgraceful, and therefore is a civil and political evil. 

But whether slavery is a sin, is quite another question. Not 
a little confusion of ideas seems to prevail in some minds on 
this subject. Perhaps those who think slavery a sin, mean no 

cursions, rob the fellahin of their produce and their crops. Miserable and 
unarmed, the latter abandon their villages and seek a more secure position, 
or trust to chance to supplj'^ themselves with food, until the summer brings 

the harvest and the robber." p. 182. " When 'Akil w^as this evening 

asked, why he did not settle down on some of the fertile lands in his dis- 
trict, and no longer live on pillage, his reply was, ' Would you have me 
disgrace myself, and till the ground like one of the fellahin 1 ' " p. 195. 

* " Elevated on the high dead limb of some gigantic tree, that commands 
a wide view of the neighboring shore and ocean, the bald eagle seems 
calmly to contemplate the motions of the various feathered tribes that 
pursue their busy avocations below: the snow white gulls slowly winnow- 
ing the air; the busy tringae coursing along the sands; trains of ducks 
streaming over the surface ; silent and watchful cranes, intent and wading ; 
clamorous crows, and all the winged multitudes that subsist by the bounty 
of this vast liquid magazine of nature. High over all these hovers one, 
whose action instantly arrests all his attention. By his wide curvature of 
wing, and sudden suspension in air, he knows him to be the fish- hawk, 
settling over some devoted victim of the deep. His eye kindles at the sight, 
and, balancing himself, with half opened wings, on the branch, he watches 
the result. Down, rapid as an arrow from heaven, descends the distant 
object of his attention, the roar of its wings reaching the ear as it disap- 
pears in the deep, making the surges foam around ! At this moment, the 
eager looks of the eagle are all ardor; and, levelling his neck for flight, he 
sees the fish-hawk once more emerge, struggling with his prey, and mount- 
ing in the air with screams of exultation. These are the signal lor our 
hero, who, launching into the air, instantly gives chase — soon gains on the 
fish-hawk — each exerts his utmost to mount above the other, disphiying in 
these rencontres the most elegant and sublime aerial evolutions. The 
unencumbered eagle rapidly advances, and is just on the point of reaching 
his opponent, when, with a sudden scream, probably of despair and honest 
execration, the latter drops his fish: the eagle, poising himself for a mo- 
ment, as if to take a more certain aim, descends like a whirlwind, snatches 
it in his grasp ere it reaches the water, and bears his ill-gotten booty silently 
away to the woods."— fFi/son's Ornithology, vol. v, p. 90. 

t When this was written, the author was residing in Baltimore. 



72 SOME "v^EWS op freedom and slavery 

more than that it is an evil. There is, however, a material 
distinction, which is to be observed between the ideas involved 
in these two terms. There is the same distinction between evil 
and sin that there is between an inclination to do what is wrong 
and the actual doing it. The chaste and pious Joseph said, on 
a memorable occasion, '^ How shall I do this great evil, and 
SIN against God?'^ This shows that sin is the doing of evil. 

Evil is that which tempts man. For " every man is tempted 
when he is drawn of his own lust, and entieed." (James, i, 4.) 
No man can be enticed by any thing but that which he loves : 
for to this the love, which is his veriest life, always inclines 
him. And the love of self, which inclines one constantly to 
seek and act for its own interest and gratification at the expense 
of every common good, is, as we have shown, essentially evil. 
This love is the fountain-head of every inordinate natural pas- 
sion, which the apostle calls lust. Hence, the inclination of 
lust, which draws away and entices, is evil; and to give way 
to the inclination — to yield to the enticement, and so to do the 
evil, is sin. For, as the apostle, John, declares, " sin is the 
transgression of the law.'^ In other words, evil is sin in inti- 
mate conception, and sin is evil brought forth into life. 

Now, with this discrimination in our eye, we may see that 
slavery, though undoubtedly an evil, may not, in all cases, be 
a sin. Or, if a sin, may be one which the apostle deems ^' not 
unto death ;'^ but which may be "prayed for.'^ The apostle 
declares, " all unrighteousness is sin :'' that is, sin consists ia 
all transgression of the divine laws. But, says he, " there is a 
sin not unto death. ^' Doubtless, the sin which is unto death 
is voluntary sin; and that which is not unto death is involuntary. 
The sin of ignorance is involuntary sin. So is the sin of he- 
reditary transmission; so far as it does not become actual evil 
by one's own irrational volition. Still, both these kinds of 
involuntary sin, although not unto death, must occasion to the 
committer of them some degree of penalty. " The Lord," says 
the doctrine of our church, " requires no more of a man than 
that he should do according to what he knoics to be true." 
The same doctrine is taught by our church in this form : 
*' Those who know their duty, and not those who are ignorant 
of it, are the objects of imputation, whether it be of righteous- 
ness or of guilt; just as blind men, when they stumble, are no 
objects of blame; for the Lord says, 'If ye were blind, ye would 
have no sin; but now you say. We see; therefore your sin re- 
maineth.' John, ix, 41." (U. T. 127.) Hence the condemna- 
tion and fatality of all sin lie in a man's knowing what is true, 
and yet willing and acting contrary to it — in ''loving darkness 



IN THE LIGHT OF THE NEW JERUSALEM. 73 

rather than light, because his deeds are evil." So that, if a 
man ^' knows his Lord's will, and does things worthy of stripes, 
he shall be beaten with manj/ stripes. "" But, " if he knows 
not his Lord's will, and yet does things worthy of stripes, he 
shall be beaten with few stripes.'' In both cases, a penalty is 
inflicted ; but in the former a heavy, and in the latter a light 
one. Hence, if slavery be an evil, all who are implicated in 
it — even those who are innocently implicated — must suffer 
in some degree from it.* But those who do not know, or 
believe, it to be wrong, are not condemnable on account of it 
as sin. Neither are those guilty sinners, who have had slavery 
entailed on them by hereditary transmission. Yet to those who 
do know, or believe, it to be siaful, the implication of it is 
indeed a heinous offence both against God and man. For surely 
no one can doubt, that, while voluntary service, or the service 
of love and therefore of freedom, is supernal, forced service, 
or that service which fear renders to im^ierious mastcrdom, is 
infernal. 

Now we cannot believe that slavery in our southern states 
is heinously sinful. We do indeed believe it is an evil: but 
we hold it to be an evil mercifully permitted, in the divine re- 
storative economy, for an ultimate or final good. What that is, 

* Evil is its own punishment. In the divine economy, the effects of evil 
are made to react upon it for its own correction. If, therefore, slavery be 
a!i evil, as we suppose it is, there must be some evil effects of it, which 
must, by their reactions, ultimately remove it from the slave states. Pha- 
raoh, whether he be the love of power or the love of wealth, will be plagued 
until he lets the Children of Africa ^o ! This is not the place to name or 
d'iscribc the plagues by which the divine will in the exodus of the Africans 
is to be brought about. It is enough to know the counsel of the Almighty, 
and to yield willing, rational and co-operative acquiescence in his august 
behests. Perhaps the manifest lagging of the slave states behind the free 
Oiies of thi'ir political sisterhood in all the race of natural wealth and civil 
power, will convince them that it is their interest to substitute voluntary 
for forced labor in developing the resources of their country. Perhaps, in 
view of the moral workings of their system, and of the political axiom, 
tliat the price of our liberties is eternal vigilance, they may feel impelled, 
by the most powerful of all incentives, to do their own working, as well as 
their own voting and fighting! But there is one evil effect of slavery in 
this country, which we ought not to pass unnoticed. It is the civil lepro- 
sy—the plague spot on the fair Jice of our social polity— of a degraded and 
hybrid race, in a state of quasi freedom, without the jiower of amalgama- 
tion or healthy assimilation in our body politic, but deforming and sick- 
ening it by parasitic attachment and nourishment. Surely we need not 
state how this is an external evil. The mere fact of the solicitous efflirts 
of the slave states themselves to get rid of this portion of their population, 
proves it. And any who have lived in contact with the unchristianized 
and naturally worst sort of this race in the free states, need not be told 
of their being a thieving and predatory nuisance to the whites. Nor need 
they be reminded that the confessions of the more malignant have shown 
us, that the blacks feel themselves Justijied in thus furtively preying upon 
the whites, by revenge for the wrong they have done them in making them 
slaves/ Is not this, then, a reaction of the evil of slavery ] Is it not a 
righteous retribution 1 Is it not a plague to compel Pharaoh in us to let 
the Africans go ] 

7 



74 SOME VIEWS OF FREEDOM AND SLAVERY 

we shall see as we proceed. Or, if southern slavery be a sin, 
we are sure it is not one that is unto death. It is a venial 
transmitted sin. The institution of slavery was entailed upon 
the southern states by the mother country's cupidity. Hence, 
we regard it there in the light of an hereditary evil, which 
requires much love and wisdom — great prudence, care, patience 
and tender solicitude — in its eradication. It must be regarded 
as a politically constitutional disease, which can be cured only 
by time, wise political dietetics, and intelligent skill exciting 
the body politic's recuperative energies. AH nature is as ab- 
liorrent to sudden change as to a vacuum. And the sin of 
slavery sinks into absolute insignificance in comparison with the 
egregious sin of those political or morbidly philanthropic quacks, 
who, by their heroic treatment of this disease — by their sudden 
alteratives, their decided blood-lettings, their drastic purges, 
their violent counter-irritants, and their other strong remedies 
— would either kill the patient, or inflict upon his shattered 
constitution vastly greater and more incurable factitious dis- 
eases, if, by some mercifully providential fortuity, he should 
happen to get well in spite of their physic ! No true man will 
he forced to do even what is right. And the very worst efi'ect 
of all objurgatory and even seeming compulsory efforts to 
destroy the evil of slavery in the South as damning sin, has 
been the driving of our southern brethren into the justification 
of it as a divine institution and a positive good. Thus do ex- 
tremes beget extremes. The wise and proper course is to reason 
with our brethren in true political love — to show them, if we 
can, their error in kindness; and, by convincing their reason, 
so act upon their own wills as to get them to work themselves 
in freely and rationally putting off an acknowledged evil. It 
is, moreover, our duty to help to bear their political burden ; and, 
in this, to share the self-sacrifice and the pecuniary or other loss 
of their evil's eradication. Nay, it is our privilege to be parti- 
cipants with them in that high national virtue which we verily 
believe is to be gained by this country in doing magnanimous 
justice to Africa. For we are sure that Divine Providence has 
])ermitted the evil of african slavery to exist in this country for 
tliat end, as we hope to show in the sequel. And it is our duty, 
not only to help our southern brethren to see tliis, if we can, 
but also to be co-operators with them in their noble work. 



IN THE LIGHT OF THE NEW JERUSALEM. 75 



CHAPTER III. 

From the Particular Doctrine of the New JeriLsalem hearincj 
on the subject he/ore us, it is argued, that the Evil of African 
Slavery is a Permission of the Divine Providence, for the 
Ultimate Regeneration of the African Race, and the Full 
Development of a Celestial Church in Africa; whereby it is 
seen, what is the True Duty of America' in regard to the 
Natural Institution of Slavery, and her Genuine Charity to 
the African in the Emancipation of him from it, as well as 
w'hat are the True Pritwiples on ichich alone such Emanci- 
pation can be safely and securely effected. 

"We are aware how startling our assertions must be. Many 
think the permission of human slavery by a merciful Divine 
Providence is an inscrutable or inexplicable mystery. To some 
minds, indeed, it borders on blasphemy to say, that God could 
have connived at, by permitting, an evil so great, or a sin so 
heinous. But it is well to remember, that " God's ways 
are not as man's ways," and are always '^ equal" — however 
otherwise they may seem to short-sighted mortals. Not only 
is the Lord ever " from seeming evil still educing good;" but 
all real evil is permitted by him for no other purpose.* There- 
fore, we are bound to believe, that african slavery in this 
country has been permitted, in the Lord's wise and merciful 
providence, for some ultimate good. 

* The Lord's government of the universe is called providence. Or, pro- 
vidence is " arrangement into good." (A. C. 10.45-'.) " Evils, however, arc 
not provided, but previded, that is, foreseen ; and in like manner permis- 
sions. But— that it may be known how the case is— previdence relates to 
evils ; but providence is the arrangement of them to good ends. There is, 
however, no chance; that is, no evil can happen by chance. But all evils 
are so governed, that no evil whatever, but what conduces to good, is per- 
mitted to befal either man or [departed] soul: consequently, nothing is 
permitted but what must have been foreseen in the way of the discernment 
of an inevitable event. Therefore it follows, that various evils are so turned 
as to have such a form [as conduces to good,] and no other ; and it cannot 
but be [that evils occur] in a state so perverse [as that of mankind, in the 
abuse of their rational and voluntary faculties, has become.] Thus it is pro- 
vidence alone which governs ; for previdence, or foresight, is thus changed 
into providence ; and thus evils are provided only in the sense of being 
changed into good: since, if the foreseen [designs] of evil spirits were per- 
mitted, they would tend to the destruction of both men and souls. Where- 
fore, the evils intended by evil spirits are turned into such things as are 

permissible." (Diarv, Vol. I, p. 334, n. 1088.) "The Lord foresees and 

beholds all and singular things ; and provides for and disposes of all and 
singular things: yet in some cases by permission, in some by admission, 
in some by leave, in some by good pleasure, in some by will." (A.C. 17o.5.) 



"^a SOME VIEWS OP FREEDOM AND SLAVERY 

The particular doctrine of the New Jerusalem hearing on 
the suhjcct before us is, that in the centre of Africa there is 
now a celestial church, and that the african race are men of 
the celestial genius. Doubtless, this will be, to many, the most 
startling of our assertions. And certainly, to all appearance, 
the assertion seems most untrue. Africans, as we see them in 
this country, are a degraded race. The bondage in which they 
are, is a correspondent of their mental and moral degradation. 
Thoir enslaved condition is an outbirth of their interior evils, 
and, as a reaction on them for their correction or restraint, is a 
sort of penitentiary punishment of their defects of character. 
The mere fact of their being slaves, also, produces a prejudice 
against them; and, by the association of ideas, their color, 
their woolly heads, and their every peculiar and distinctive 
feature, are connected with all that is low and debased in 
humanity. Hence, to say they are of the celestial genius, shocks 
the common sense of men around us. But, in rightly estimating 
any form of our common humanity, we must look with philo- 
sophic eyes, and "judge righteous judgment/' And thus, in 
estimating the peculiar genius of the african race, we must send 
our intellectual vision through outside, deceptions appearances, 
to their interior qualities; or we must apprehend the exterior 
forms or types of those qualities by that revived science of cor- 
respondences which makes effects exponents of their causes. 
But let us first learn what is meant by celestial, and what is 
the distinguishing characteristic of the celestial man. 

"To know wliat is true bj' virtue of what is good, is celestial."—" Man 
is called celestial, if the Lord's divine good is received in the will part — 
spiritual, if in the intellectual part." (A.C. 51;)0.) "The celestial man is 
one who, from the will principle, is in good, and thence in truth ; and ho 
is distinguished from the spiritual man in this, that the latter, from the 
intellectual principle, is in truth, and thence in good." (A.C. ()29.5.) "They 
who arc in the Lord's spiritual kingdom worship him from faith; but they 
wJio are in his celestial kingdom worship him from love." (A.C. 1U.C46.) 

From this it appears, that the celestial principle of humanity 
is love, will or affection ; and that a man of celestial genius is 
one whose distinguishing characteristic is action from this prin- 
ciple. Now every external of the African is a celestial corre- 
spondent. His having wool instead of hair,* with his strong 
propensities for laughing, singing and dancing, are all such."f- 

* See "The Classification of mankind by the Hair and Wool of their 
Heads; with An Answer to iJr. Prichard's Assertion, that 'the covering of 
the head of the Negro is Hair, properly so termed, and not Wool.' Head 
before the American Ethnological Society, Nov. 3, 1849. By P. A. Browne, 
LL. D." t, J, , 3 , 

t The Encyclopapdia Americana, in the article AVgro, savs : "The negro 
character, if inferior in intellectual vigor, is marked hy a warmth of social 
allcctions, and a kindness and tenderness of feeling, which even the atro- 



IN THE LIGHT OF THE NEW JERUSALEM. 77 

His color seems to be against this hypothesis. But, besides 
that we have the best reason for knowing that the spirit of the 
good and wise African is white, and have some reason for be- 
lieving that the bodies of the higher tribes in the centre of 
Africa are white also, we must remember that the correspondence 
of the spiritual things of the soul is with the uses of the natural 
things of the body, and not with the substance, form or modi- 
fication of its organs. Thus the correspondence of the under- 
standing is with the sight of the eye, and not with the eye itself; 
the correspondence of the perception of the mind is with the 
smelling, and not with the nose; the correspondence of the 
obedience of the will is with the hearing, and not with the ear; 
and so forth. Hence the correspondence of the distinctive 
genius of the African is with the use of the color of his skin, 
and not with the color itself. What, then, is the use of a black 
skin in the african race ? and is this use a spiritual or a celestial 
correspondent? 

We know that black does not reflect either light or heat, but 
absorbs both ; and, in absorbing heat from one side, transmits 
it to the other. Hence the water in a copper tea-kettle, the 
bottom of which is scoured bright, will not boil near so soon as 
when the bottom is blackened with smoke or soot. So heated 
water in a silver tea-pot will not part with its caloric near so 
fast, when the surface of the tea-pot is thoroughly cleaned by 
polishing, as when it is soiled or discolored by being tarnished 
and uncleaned ; and as the virtue of the tea is more thoroughly 
extracted by drawing, the hotter the water is, therefore white 
china and polished metallic tea-pots are much better for draw- 
ing tea than any of the colored sorts. The use of a black skin 
in the negro is, then, the ready absorption and radiation of 
heat. 

The black color of the negro's skin has also a correspondence 
with his celestial genius. For the negro is the celestial man 
in an utterly degenerate state; and black corresponds to the 
proprium of man in such a state of celestial degeneracy. 

Further, Africa is peculiarly the land of heat; and heat in 
.the natural world corresponds to love in the spiritual world : 
therefore, both the African and his color, which, as we have 
seen, corresponds to heat naturally, correspond to the celestial 
principle of man. This applies, in some degree, to all the 

cities of foreign oppression have not been able to stifle. All travellers 
concur in describing the negroes as mild, amiable, simple, hospitable, unsus- 
pecting and laithful. They are passionately fond of rnusic, and they ex- 
press their hopes and fears in extemporary effusions of song. AU tnct-o 
are characteristics of men of the celestial genius. 

7* 



78 SOME VIEWS OF FREEDOM AND SLAVERY 

inhabitants of the torrid zone, who are all, more or less, charac- 
terized ])j dark color of the skin. For, as natural heat corre- 
sponds to spiritual heat, or love, hence it is that man becomes 
quickly and intensely warm in the ratio of the strength and 
ready activity of passion, and that the natives of hot climates 
are apt to be choleric and jealous. From all this, we conclude, 
that the countries of the torrid zone, which lie constantly under 
the sun's vertical rays, have a celestial correspondence in the 
material cosmos, and that the men of those countries are relatively 
of the celestial genius; that is, are men more characterized by 
love and its passions, than by wisdom and 'its intellections; or 
men whose wisdom is more the perceptive intelligence of love, 
than the ratiocinative intelligence of science. 

Nothing can be clearer than that the negro is as much 
formed, by the whole constitution of his body, as well as by 
the color of his skin, for living, and enjoying life, in the in- 
tense intertropicjil heat of Africa, as the camel is formed for 
travelling in african deserts. In fact, he is a sort of human 
salamander. And it is because the negro can endure a degree 
of heat which kills the white man, that the blacks are better 
fitted to cultivate the rice, cotton and sugar plantations of the 
South, and of the West Indies, than the whites; and why black 
can never compete with white labor in mountainous and frosty 
regions. The negro has this power in the peculiar organization 
of his skin, which not only has an extraordinary development 
of the layer \_rete miicosvm'] that secretes a black pigment,* 
but also a more copiously and rapidly perspirable structure. 
The want of this quality of the negro skin, is strikingly illus- 
trated by what is believed to be a fact of natural history. It is 
said that sheep, when taken from cold, mountainous, northern 
regions to the torrid zone, lose their covering of wool and get 
one of hair. Their wool is one of the worst conductors of heat 

* "When a blister has been applied to the skin of a ncj?ro, if it has not 
been very stimulating, in twelve hours after, a thin transparent greyish 
membrane is raised, under which we find a lluid. This membrane is the 
cuticle or scarf skin. WJien this, with the fluid, is removed, the surface 
under them appears black. But, if the blister had been very stimulating, 
another membrane, in which this black color resides, would also have been 
raised with the cuticle: this is rete mucosum, which is itse/f double, con- 
sisting of another grey transparent membrane, and of a black web, very 
much resembling the nigrum pigmentum of the eye. When this mem- 
brane is removed, the surface of the true skin (as has hitherto been be- 
lieved) comes into view, and is white, like that of a European." (Hoop. 
Med. Dit-t., Lond. Edit., 1811, «. 749.) This manifest doubleness of the reto 
mucosum in the negro, which we had ourselves seen, — making the skin of 
the black man, when tanned, considerably thicker than tliat of the white 
man, — led us to say, in the first edition, that hi« skin "has an addiiianal 
layer which secrete* a plack pigment;" but we have now deemed it the 
safest form of expression to say, his skin has "an extraordinary develop- 
meat " of tliat layer. 



IN THE LIGHT OP THE NEW JERUSALEM. 79 

and moisture. The colder the climate, the finer it is; because 
its nonconducting power increases in the ratio of its fineness. 
Hence, in the torrid zone, the sheep's wool so obstructs the 
animal heat and perspirable matters in their passage off, that 
they generate a fever in the skin, which, by its suppurating 
efifects, causes the woolly coat to slough oiF, and give place to a 
hairy mantle. For the sheep, with a coat of hair, radiates heat 
more rapidly, and perspires more freely, so as to be able to 
endure the otherwise destructive heats of the torrid regions. 
In like manner, the negro, by the blackness and the greater per- 
spirability of his skin, radiates heat and evacuates humors more 
readily and rapidly than the white man. The African's head, 
indeed, has wool instead of hair; but this is because his celes- 
tial genius makes him fond of heat in his head. In Kentucky, 
we observed that, although the negro's feet were very suscep- 
tible of cold and liable to be frosted, yet, when sleeping at 
night, he would roll himself in his blanket and lie with his head 
to the fire — even, some times, in the very ashes. White men, 
in like circumstance, are wont to lie with their feet to the fire. 
But the skin of the black man certainly voids heat and mois- 
ture more readily and more iM'ofusely than the white man ; and 
as his perspiration is greater in quantity, and more oily in qua- 
lity, it requires more of his animal heat to become latent in it for 
its evaporation. This is an additional cause of the African's 
greater ability to endure the excessive heat of his native climate. 
Hence the animal heat and morbid humors, which, pent in by 
his white skin, kill the Caucasian in Africa with fevers, are no 
impediment to the negro's free and full enjoyment of life there. 
This is one reason why the whites have never yet been able fully 
to explore the centre of Africa. The Mighty Lord has encircled 
that centre with a wall of fire, which is a far more efi'ectual bar- 
rier against the inroads of the Europeans, than the wall of China 
ever was against those of the Tartars. And as this is a clear 
indication of the divine will that Africa should be inhabited, 
improved, reformed, regenerated, governed and elevated solely 
or mainly by Africans, therefore justice to Africa demands that 
Europeans, and their descendants in America, who hold her 
sous in servile bondage or slavish apprenticeship, should send 
them back to her, having previously fitted them for a happy 
repose on her bosom ! 

We conclude, that, as the african race, color and all, are 
correspondents of heat in the torrid zone; and as heat there is 
a correspondent of love in the celestial kingdom of the spiritual 
world; therefore Africans are men of a celestial genius. Their 
degraded forms and characters here, and the hideous forms and 



80 SOME VIEWS OP FREEDOM AND SLAVERY 

horrid barbarities in the circumferential parts of their o^vn 
country, are the results of the utter perversion of their more 
noble nature. For, as all evil is but perverted good, the 
more exalted and more perfect the good, the more debased and 
more deformed must be the evil which results from its per- 
version. 

But the revelations which are now made, from the spiritual 
world, for the use of the new christian church, are our best and 
truest informants respecting the genius and destinies of the 
african race. And when we know that the quarters of the com- 
pass in this world signify the four cardinal states of the soul in 
the other world; and that the east in the spiritual world is 
whore the Lord is in love to him and from him; we may see 
whatjs the spiritual position of Africa, relatively to Asia and 
Europe, from the following revelation : " The angels, when 
Asia is named, perceive the south; when Europe is named, 
they perceive the north; and yhen Africa is named, they per- 
ceive the cast.^' (^P- Ex. 21.) This shows that, in the percep- 
tion of the angels, Africans are of the celestial genius. 

The following revelations also bear upon this subject. They 
are our authorities for asserting, that there is now, in the centre 
of Africa, a new church of a celestial stamp, and that, among 
all heathen nations, the Africans stand preeminent as men of 
an interior and celestial order. 

The distinguishing truths of Christianity are "comprehended and received 
by the Afiicans " in the other world, " inasmuch as they think more interi- 
orly and spiritually than others. Such being the character of the Africans 
even in this world, there is, there/ore, at this day, a revelation begun 
among them, which is communicated from the centre round about, but 
does not extend to the sea coasts. Tl>ey acknowledge our Lord as the 
Lord of heaven and earth, and laugh at the Monks who visit them, and at 
Christians who talk of a threefold divinity, and of salvation by mere thought 
— asserting that there is no man, who worships at all, that does not live 
according to his religion ; and that, unless a man so lives, he must needs 
become stupid and wicked, because, in such case, be receives nothing from 
heaven. They likewise give the name of stupidity to ingenious wicked- 
ness, because there is not life but death in it." All "the things contained 
in the doctrine of the New Jerusalem," whiqh are now revealed from hea- 
ven, for the use of a new and true christian church in christian countries, 
by writing and the press, "are now revealed by word of mouth, throuj^h 
angelic spirits, to the inhabitants of that country." (^Con. Last Jud. 75, ?(■.) 

" The new church is planted in the centre of Africa amongst those who 
live a good life, according to the best of their knowledge, and worship one 
God under a human form." (C. L. 114.) 

In revealing the third state of men after death, "which is the state of 
instruction of those who come into heaven," our church thus describes the 
character and genius of the heathen nations: they "who, in the world, 
have led a good life in conformity with their religion, and have thence de- 
rived a species of conscience, and have done what is just and right, not 
so much on account of the laws of their government, but on account of 
the laws of religion, which they believed ought to be kept holy, and in no 
respect to be violated by overt acts— all these, when they are instructed, are 
easily led to acknowledge the Lord ; because it is iu)prcssed on their hearts 



IN THE LIGHT OP THE NEW JERUSALEM. 81 

that God is not an invisible being, but a being visible under a human form. 
These, in number, exceed all the rest. The best of them are from Africa." 
(H. &H. 514.) 

" Such among the Gentiles as, in the v?orld, have worshiped God under a 
human form, and have Jived a life of charity according to their religion, 
are conjoined to Christians in heaven; for they acknowledge and worsliip 
the Lord more than the rest. The most intelligent of them are from Africa." 
(Last Judg. 51.) 

" The Gentiles are also distinguished according to their genius, and their 
different capacities of receiving light through the heavens from the Lord ; 
for there are among them both interior and exterior men, which arises 
partly from climate, [does not this confirm our argument above]] partly 
from parentage, partly from education, and partly from religion. The 
Africans are a more interior peojjle than any other of the Gentiles."\\].T. S35.) 

All who acknowledge the verity of these revelations, cannot 
entertain any doubts on the subject before us. They now know 
that the Africans are men of a celestial genius. They know 
that, in the central regions of Africa, — as yet unexplored by 
Europeans, — there is a celestial church, winch has the imme- 
diate revelation of truth by angelic spirits. Hence Africa in 
its confines, or in its circumferential regions, must be the celes- 
tial man in a degenerate state. This man, in a good degenerate 
type, must be a willing obedience to some master;* and, in a 
bad degenerate type, must be the most revolting combatant for 
dominion over his fellows — merging every vestige of true hu- 
manity in the most barbarous cannibalism. 

Now, although, to us here, with our vision extended to very 
narrow limits, it may seem a great evil that innocent and well- 
disposed Africans — men, women and children — should have 
been brought to this country and sold into bondage to the 
whites; yet this is a far less evil than that they should have 
been butchered and eaten, as captives in war, by their savage 
conquerors in their own country : it is certainly not a greater 
evil than that inflicted upon Joseph by his brethren — his own 
flesh and blood — who sold him, through the Ishmaelites, into 
egyptian bondage. And may we not see that the bondage of 
Africans in this country is as much in the providence of the 
Lord for final good to Africa, as the bondage of the Children 
of Israel in Egypt was for the final good of the church of G od 
in its restoration to Palestine? The science of Egypt was in- 
dispensably necessary to that restoration. It was equally indis- 
pensable in that august restoring of lost humanity by GoD- 
wiTH-us, when he became ^' Jehovah our righteousness." 

* "Among all the nations in heaven, the Africans are most beloved, for 
they receive the goods and truths of heaven more easily than others. 
They wish especially to be called obedient, but not faithful. They say tJiat 
Christians, because tiiey have the doctrines of faith, may be called faithful ; 
but not they, unless they receive it ; or, as they say, are able to receive it. 
Cn.&H. 32H, A.C. 2G04.) 



82 SOxME VIEWS OF FREEDOM AND SLAVERY 

And it ever -will be indispensable in the restoration of the ce- 
lestial church. Wherefore, it has been, and still is, needed in 
the restoration of the celestial church throucrhout Africa. lis 
celestial centre needs a scientific reactive plain from Europe, or 
America, which is Europe transplanted, to extend it to, and 
form it fully on, the sea coasts. Only in this way can the de- 
generate celestial character of Africa be restored throughout 
her borders. 

AYhen the celestial church falls, the old or natural will is 
destroyed, and the understanding is separated from it and sci- 
entifically enlightened, so that a new will may be formed in 
the intellectual principle of the mind. For this purpose, Afri- 
cans of the better degenerate sort, have been sold, by their 
brethren of the worst degenerate sort, into slavery; and, in the 
Lord's permissive providence, have been brought to America 
as a relative Egypt. Here, by mingling with a more scientific, 
rational, intellectual and enlightened race, they are in the way 
of receiving that christian understanding of truth, which is 
necessary for the development, perfection and defence, in the 
circumference of Africa, of that celestial will of good which is 
now nascent in its centre. The two-edged sword of african 
intellect needs tempering and sharpening by european science, 
to do efifcctual battle with the evils and falsities that afflict 
mankind. While here, the Africans must be .the servants or 
slaves of the Europeans; because, in degenerate man, the 
darkened will must be subject to, and governed by, the en- 
lightened understanding as a master. J^ut, in the fulness of 
time, — and the purposes of a Good Providence seem now to be 
ripening fast, — the enlightened African, restored by coloniza- 
tion to his father land, will carry back those vital influences 
which are to revivify his country, and cause /ze;-, perhaps, to 

" arise, 
The queen of the world, and the child of the skies " ! 

The black blood of Africa has been sent from her eastern celes- 
tial heart to these western countries as sijiritual luns:s. Here 
it is brought in contact with the air and ether of ch'ristianity, 
to give out its eflfete earthly carbonaceous matters and take in 
the oxygen of heaven. And when it is thus suflSciently vita- 
lized, it will by and by be seen to pour its encrimsoned flood 
refluent, for that potent arterial action, by which Ilumaniti/ 
will stand forth disenthralled, and, full developed in celestial 
purity and perfection, will stretch her arms from Afric's shores, 
in heavenly benediction, over a regenerated world! 

The part of true wisdom here, then, is to rcgjird slavery in 



IN THE LIGHT OF THE NEW JERUSALEM. 83 

refoience to this end. Viewed in this light, its amorphous and 
unsightly stones become luminous and beauteous with the pris- 
matic hues, and fall into the orderly forms, of a heaven-directed 
kaleidescopal arrangement. Its evil becomes mellowed into 
good. And if the American, knowing that a nation is not born 
in a day, shall not spoil his work by impatience — if he shall 
work in faith while he waits in hope — if he shall look to the 
sure effectuation of high and holy ends by the gradual means 
of long protracted time — he will perform that work of genuine 
charity, in such a suitaUe preparation of the african slave for 
the right use and enjoyment of natural, civil, social and political 
freedom, as shall doubly bless, both him that gives and him 
that receives it, when ''the set time is full come'' for the 
reception of the boon. 

Yes, we repeat, all nature is abhorrent to sudden changes ! 
And slavery, as an hereditary political evil, long developed in 
chronic disease, cannot possibly be corrected or cured in an 
instant. In demonstrating the evil of slavery, we have shown 
this already. But we must repeat what we said there, because 
it is essential to our argument here. 

African slavery has been gradually ingenerated, and has 
gradually grown up, in long time; and equally long time is 
requisite for its safe and thorough eradication from the body 
politic. Men who have been begotten and born slaves for a long 
course of years, can only be rebegotten and reborn freemen by 
the processes of correspondingly protracted reformation and 
regeneration. And hence the instantaneous manumission of 
the slave, and the sudden abolition of slavery, would be no less 
unkindness to the slave, than injustice to the community. 

We must not forget the distinguishing characteristic of man- 
hood. As we have before shown, that which distinguishes the 
Creator from the creature, as well as assimilates the creature to 
the Creator, is providence and providence. God foreknows or 
foresees all things, and incessantly provides that good shall be 
done, and evil be averted, restrained or so arranged as to con- 
duce to good. Man knows nothing or little of the future, and 
can but imperfectly provide for that little in the present. But 
so far as man resembles Grod, he comes into the enjoyment of 
intelligent foresight, and into the exercise of that wise prudence 
which consists in providing in the present for the future. And 
herein the slave differs essentially from the freeman. In fact, 
he is rather in the condition of a child. He is in a worse 
condition ; for he is not in the way of ever coming to the state 
of acting in his own right. Trusting to his master's foresight, 
and feil by his providings, he becomes himself improvident; 



84 SOME VIEWS OP FREEDOM AND SLAVERY 

and, only regarding his own pleasure in the present, he eats up 
all lie has to-da}', without laying by any thing for the morrow. 
IJence, if slaves are suddenly manumitted, and thrown out of 
the sphere and patronage of intelligent and provident freemen, 
they ere long deteriorate in character, become destitute and 
miserable in condition, and decrease in numbers. So that it is 
as unkind and unmerciful to set a slave free at once, without 
preparing him gradually for the use and enjoyment of liberty, 
as it is to let loose a bird that has been hatched and reared in 
a cage, and constantly fed, and every way cared for, by the as- 
siduous attentions of its human possessor — in which case, it is 
well known that the creature perishes from its incapacity to 
take care of itself. 

Consequently, the true duty of America in regard to slavery, 
and her genuine charity to the African in the emancipation of him 
from it, must consist in all those constitutional provisions for 
the abolishment of the evil, which not only look to the eman- 
cipation of the slave in some future time, but shall also make it 
obligatory on his master or the state to qualify him, in the mean 
time, by suitable education and the development of useful ca- 
pacities, for the right and profitable use of freedom when it 
shall become his portion. Any thing short of this, would be 
unkindness to the slave, and injustice to the community. Well, 
then, may it be said to our countrymen — " If ye know these 
things, happy are ye, if ye do them.^^ They will be happy, 
not merely in getting rid of an evil which is endangering their 
political safety and social prosperity, but, what is far more de- 
sirable, they will be happy in that political, civil and moral 
elevation of character which results from a high and noble 
nature brought into full form and vigor by the long-continued 
and consistent exercise of great virtues. God grant that our 
country may, in this respect, enjoy the exceedingly precious 
blessing of his divine favor ! 

We are aware how repugnant these views must be to the 
principles and feelings of those who hold to the right of pro- 
perty in human beings, and how much they are against what 
they now regard as their interests. But our argument is not 
addressed to them. We too well know the fruitlessness of 
reasoning for truth and justice in those matters wherein the 
selfish and worldly interests of mankind are at stake. Our ar- 
gument is addressed to those who regard slavery as a civil and 
political evil, which is to be gradually worked out of the body 
politic^ by wise, prudent and prospective constitutional provi- 
eions. And^ with this end in vieW; we maintain.; that african 



IN THE LIGHT OP THE NEW JERUSALEM. 81 

bondage in this country must be put upon the footing of slavish 
apprenticeship. 

It is presumed that Africans have been suffered to come 
here, by Divine Providence, for their own reformation and their 
country's regeneration. The slave state, which alone has the 
power to determine whether slavery shall or shall not be an 
institution of its polity, is to take to itself, in its collective 
capacity, an entire wardship of the slaves; and it is to found 
institutions, and provide all means, for their education and 
entire social improvement. It touches not the right of indi- 
vidual property in any that are slaves now; but it decrees that 
every child, begotten by slave parents after a certain period, 
shall be born free; and it apprentices the child so born, when 
nurtured and reared by its parents to a suitable age, and pro- 
perly educated at free schools to be established and main- 
tained by the state for the purpose, to some master or mis- 
tress, either the owner of the parents, or some other person, 
as the case may seem to require, and as may be agreeable to 
the owner — to learn some useful handicraft or occupation — to 
serve till thirty years of age, and then to receive a suit of clothes 
and enough money to take him or her to Africa — the state pro- 
viding for and securing both transportation to and settlement 
in that country. 

It is presumed, that the value of the services of the appren- 
tice to the master or mistress, during so long an apprenticeship, 
is a full equivalent for all he or she receives both before and at 
the day of freedom. And the only sacrifice the slaveholder 
makes is of the institution of slavery — which he gives up for 
the good of the country — and of the increased value of the 
enfranchised workman's services during the remainder of his 
life. It should be observed, however, that he as an individual 
has no just right to a value which has accrued from the collec- 
tive body's emancipating measures; and, as an offset, he is 
relieved from the burden of maintaining the superannuated 
slave. 

Of course, there is no weight whatever in these observations, 
if african slavery in this country is a civil and political blessing 
to both the blacks and the whites. But, if we mistake not the 
signs of the times, the days of slavery, in this and in all coun- 
tries, are numbered. If there was a final general judgment in 
the world of spirits in the year 1757, as we believe — if, in con- 
sequence of this, a new heavenly arrangement of Christians has 
taken place in the spiritual world — if, from this new heaven, a 
new and true christian church is now descending to earth — and 
if sevenfold light and heat, from the Sun of Heaven newly 



SG SOME VIEWS OF FREEDOM AND SLAVERY 

rising in the minds of men, are pouring down upon all the 
marshy grounds, foggy valleys and dark places of human de- 
generacy — then an explosive force, a mental, moral and spiritual 
nitric oxide compound, is generating, which will dissipate into 
thin air the bonds of slavery wherever they exist ! And wo 
be to the hand that attempts to stay its rendings! Yes, a de- 
cree, infinitely more irrevocable than that of the Medes and 
Persians, has gone forth, that, in due time, slavery in our 
southern states shall cease : and as well might a man try to 
prevent the explosion of a locomotive steam boiler by putting 
his arms round it, as the South attempt to array herself against 
the fulfilment of this divine decree ! All her measures for 
perpetuating slavery against the spirit of the present age, are 
gradually laying a train which will thoroughly undermine her 
constitution, and ultimately explode, to her inevitable destruc- 
tion. And it is the part of true wisdom in her, to provide this 
catastrophe, and to forfend it by the instant and constant pro- 
vision of all requisite present and prospective means. 

In this view of the subject, we are satisfied that the true way 
is to regard slavery as a spiritual evil — as a counteraction of 
the laws of the Divine Governor of the Universe, who will have 
all men come to the knowledge of the truth, and decrees that 
the truth every where shall make them free! This makes the 
eradication of this evil from the body politic, more a spiritual 
function, and the task rather a mission of the church. In this 
view, the abolition of slavery is certainly not a governmental 
work. So far as it comes within the province of the civil polity, 
it is the work of the nation. It is the work of the people as a 
whole. The people of America, as one man, are just as much 
bound to give money — each and every one of them a portion — 
to indemnify the slaveholder for the constitutional property 
which he gives up for the good of the nation, as they are to 
erect a monument to Washington, or to do any other purely 
national or truely patriotic work. And they are bound to do 
it by voluntary contribution — not by government tax. The 
grand principle is, to develop a national virtue by a national 
action : and neither the South, nor any other p«?-< of the nation, 
has a right, in divine justice, to monopolize the virtue by as- 
suming the action wholly to itself. If the South would so per- 
mit and decree, it might, as we suppose, be the function and duty 
of the christian churches prevalent throughout our whole 
country, to educate and prepare the children of the slaves for 
freedom; and, if necessary, to purchase them for the jourpose. 
This is on the ground of slavery's being regarded as a spiritual 
evil; and is instead of the state's establishment and support of 



IN THE LIGHT OF THE NEW JERUSALEM. 87 

free schools for the education of slaves' children, on the ground 
of its being regarded as a merely civil or political one. In our 
humble opinion, this is the more appropriate duty of the pre- 
valent churches; and it is a more incumbent and more noble 
charity, to instruct the children of the slaves in the most general 
and wholly unsectarian principles of the christian religion, as 
well as to train them in the agricultural, mechanical and com- 
mercial arts, than it is to civilize and christianize the Indians, 
or to send missionaries to the Heathen of foreign lands : for 
this is one mode in which ^' charity should begin at home." 
And it is just as feasible for all the christian sects to unite in 
this work, as in printing and publishing the Sacred Scriptures 
without note or comment. When the offspring of the slaves 
are prepared for freedom, then, unquestionably, it will be the 
civil duty of the american people, in their collective capacity, 
to send them to Africa. 

But there are certain principles on which alone the emanci- 
pation of the slave can be safely and securely effected. No 
plan of j^reparing the slaves for freedom will be effectual, which 
is not founded on marriage. We must go to the very fountain- 
head of human improvement. We must go to the plain on 
whi^h the first or inmost changes are made by the plastic hand 
of regeneration in the moulding reformations of the human soul. 
We must yield to the awards of common sense, and improve 
the african race as the races of animals are improved. Mar- 
riage among the blacks should be most strictly regulated by 
wise rules. No adult apprentice that is morally vicious or 
physically deformed or mortally diseased, should be allowed to 
marry at all. Marriage might be allowed to the apprentices as 
a reward of exemplary virtue, piety and true religion. In the 
case of those of ordinary character, it should be postponed till 
after their freedom. For the functions, duties and responsibi- 
lities of the marriage relation are of the highest order and the 
greatest use, and should be devolved on none but the best class 
in such a state of tutelage. In no case, should the appren- 
tices be allowed to contract marriage before the age of twenty- 
five in the male and twenty in the female; and, when married, 
they should be set up in business, and taught to discharge with 
propriety the duties of the family relation, in near proximity 
to the families of their masters, and under their intelligent and 
paternal supervision. Thus will young families be prepared for 
Africa. And, by crossing the various tribes, as well as by 
pairing the more noble and generous sorts, vast improvements 
of the race in general might be effected. 



88 SOME VIEWS OF FREEDOM AND SLAVERY 

Of course, there should be nothing arbitrary or capricious in 
these matrimonial allotments; but a free and rational restrain- 
ing of passions, and guiding of inclinations, by sensible advice, 
moral suasion, and kindly authority, as in the best regulated 
modes of society among the whites. The affinities and draw- 
ings of interior conjugial affections must never be outraged by 
the forced determinations of factitious law or arbitrary autho- 
rity. Perhaps those who ought not to intermarry, should never 
be thrown together, either in the school room, the place of 
labor or the field of recreation. This would prevent early 
attachments among such as ought not to be united in wedlock. 
It might be difficult to draw the line marking properly the 
degree of moral or physical defect prohibitory of marriage. 
But there would be no ground for wisdom to exercise herself 
on, if there were no difficulties; and this difficulty, true wisdom 
could easily overcome. In the case of idiots, the principle and 
the case are manifest. And it only seems hard, that those who 
are physically deformed or diseased — so as to be impotent, or 
able to have only a physically degenerate progeny — should be 
debarred from the sweets and comforts of conjugial and domestic 
life, when they are possessed of the higher order of mental 
powers and virtues. Jhit this is a case for that species of noble 
self-denial, which has led superior minds of the white race, 
tainted, for instance, with hereditary insanity, to doom them- 
selves to celibacy, or to immolate themselves on the altar of 
their country's battle-field, that they might die childless, and 
so stop the propagation of a defective form of humanity. It is 
clear, that the african race, like any other, cannot be radically, 
thoroughly and highly improved, without wise and intelligent 
regard to the marriage principle as here suggested. And it 
must never be forgotten, that any decided elevation of the 
african character by these means, must only be looked for in 
long courses of time, and by the most gradual steps of ascent. 

iVor will any plan for abolishing african slavery in the 
southern states be practicable, effectual or secure, which does 
not contemplate radical changes in the manners, customs and 
entire social economy of the whites. This, indeed, is the great 
and inherent difficulty of the subject. For it is almost impos- 
sible to make communities give up principles of pride, which 
underlay their honor, and to submit to entire changes of their 
social organization, however gradual and prospective they may 
be. Nay, they at once resist the inceptive measure, in strongest 
opposition to its final result. Therefore, all theories for the 
abolition of slavery are chimerical, which do not rest on organic 
changes of the slave communities^ brought about by their owu 



IN THE LIGHT OP THE NEW JERUSALEM. 89 

free and rational action, in giTing up former principles, and in 
adopting such new ones as alone can sustain an unmixed and 
politically and socially equal population in the various relations 
of mutual and reciprocal service. The hands and the head of 
the South must be washed, before she can be made every whit 
clean by the washing of her feet. 

There must be as great a change in the character of the 
■whites as in that of the blacks, in preparing the slave sptate for 
so total a metamorphosis. White children must be reared and 
educated on different principles. The notion that a white man 
is degraded by doing a negro's work, must be exploded: for, 
in a homogeneous and truly free community, there is no negro's 
work to be done. The idea that it is more honorable or respec- 
table to receive service from others than to render it to them, 
must be dissipated at once. This is the corner-stone of feudal- 
ism and of imperious sway. It is both anti-republican and 
anti-christian. The christian maxim is a political truth — '' it 
is better to give than to receive'' service. Higher and lower 
service, in wider and narrower spheres of usefulness, is the only 
honorable distinction in a true republic as in the true church : 
and the instruments of low and common labor must be rela- 
tively the community's own foot, and not an African's neck 
under it. Then will even low and common labor be dignified 
with all the honor of the whole body. The community will 
regard its common laborer with some thing of the feeling of a 
father who kisses with fond affection the tiny foot of his prat- 
tling infant, or of a man who admires the well formed foot of 
the woman that he loves. In the words of an apostle, the com- 
munity can then practically say — '^ our uncomely parts have 
more abundant comeliness; for our comely parts have no need : 
but God hath tempered the body together, having given more 
abundant honor to that part which lacked; that there should 
be no schism in the body, but that the members should have 
the same care one for another : and, whether one member suffer, 
all the members suffer with it; or one member be honored, all 
the members rejoice with it." (1 Cor., xii, 23 — 26.) 

When labor is thus dignified, and the laborer is thus honored, 
in the South, tlicn there will be no difficulty in abolishing 
slavery there, and its abolition will be most safely and securely 
effected. Free white men will freely go thither to do the work 
which is now done by slaves. Small property holders will more 
divide the soil. Other sources of wealth will be developed. 
New kinds of business will be set on foot, requiring a greater 
variety of labor and of talent. The present vast and almost 
exclusive production of cotton, rice and sugar will undergo 

8 =K 



90 SOME VIEWS or FREEDOM AND SLAVERY 

great modifications — lessening in amount indeed, and so ceasing 
to enrich the few, but conspiring with a greater variety of pro- 
ductions to enrich the many, and, by multijolying a greater 
number of kinds of wealth, and aggregating a greater total 
from very many small amounts of wealth, to increase vastly in 
quality and degree the prosperity of the commonwealth. And 
as all this is to take place gradually, in long courses of time, 
afforded by the gradual preparation of the black population for 
an advantageous removal to Africa, there may be such a slow 
and quiet infiltration of white laborers into the renewed and 
bettered forms of society, pari j^cissu with the black laborers' 
leaving them, as will not only save the institutions of the states 
from any kind of convulsive or injurious change, but give to 
them the solidity, transparency and polish of a sort of social 
petrifaction. 



CHAPTER ly. 



Precdom and Slavcri/ very Itriefly and cursorily viewed in 
their Spiritual Aspect. 

It is far more incumbent on us to regard spiritual freedom 
as a good, in contrast with spiritual slavery as an evil. And 
this leads us to view the subject before us in its spiritual aspect. 
The spiritual aspect of a thing is the view it presents when seen 
in the light of God's Word. Or, as the true church is the only 
right interpreter of the AVord of God, the spiritual aspect of 
freedom and slavery is what the doctrines of the true church 
teach concerning them. 

xsow Jesus said, to the Jews who believed on him, ^' Ye shall 
know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. They an- 
swered him, AVe be Abraham's seed, and have never been in 
bondage to any man: how saycst thou Ye shall be made free? 
Jesus answered them, Yerily, verily, I say unto you, AVhosoever 
committeth sin, is the servant of sin. And the servant abideth 
not in the house for ever: but the son abideth for ever. If the 
son, therefore, shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed." 
(John, viii, o'l — oO.) 

It is manifest that the Lord, in this passage of his Word, ig 
treating of spiritual freedom in contrast with spiritual bondage; 



IN THE LIGHT OF THE NEW JERUSALEM. 91 

for he is showing the Jews how they might be made free, and 
they, confessedly, were not slaves in the natural sense. The 
conclusion is, that the Jews were slaves only in the spiritual 
sense; and that the Lord points out to them the source of 
spiritual servitude, and of spiritual freedom. 

The Lord, in this text, most clearly indicates the spiritual 
fountain-head of both slavery and freedom by these sentences : 
Whosoever commifteth sin, is the servant of sin; and. If tlie son 
shall make you free, ye shall he free indeed. The source of 
slavery is the commission of sin : the source of freedom is the 
practice of truth. Hence, in the spiritual aspect of our subject, 
slavery is the bondage of sin, and freedom is the service of the 
Lord. 

The service of the Lord h perfect freedom. For the Lord is 
love and wisdom itself; and what a man does from love by 
wisdom, is most spontaneous and free. Wisdom is good in 
form, that is, truth made good by virtuous activity. Love is 
good in essence, that is, essential good formed and qualified by 
the truth which corresponds to it. The service of wisdom is 
the loving obedience of its precepts — is the doing of truth for 
truth's sake. This service is always the more or less constrained 
subjection of the natural man to the spiritual man: because 
truth "reproves the world of sin" — condemns the natural man's 
evils, and requires the spiritual man to renounce them as sins. 
This idea of se{/-constraint is not really repugnant to true free- 
dom, although it seems so. That which is really repugnant to 
freedom is the being constrained hy others. Hence, when v/e 
said, in the last chapter, " no true man will be forced to do 
even what is right,"* we did not mean to imply that every true 
man is not willing io force himself to do what his enlightened 
reason tells him he ought : for such self-constraint is altogether 
compatible with the free principle of his nature. f But this 
idea of constraint characterizes the free service of the child of 
light, and distinguishes it from that of the child of love. For, 
while that service is the constrained doing of truth for truth's 
sake, which is the result of divine reformation ; the service of 

* " Unless it was left to man to act according to his reason from freedom, 
he could not in any wise be disposed to receive eternal life; for tliis is in- 
sinuated when man is in freedom, and his reason is illustrated: for no one 
can be compelled to good ; because nothing which is of compulsion inheres; 
lor it is not his. That becomes his, which is done from freedom ; for that 
which is done from the will, is done from freedom ; and the will is the man 
himself. ' Wherefore, unless man be kept in the freedom even to do evil, 
good from the Lord cannot be provided lor him." (A.C. 10.777.) 

t In A. C. 1937, 1947, 7914, we are taught, that man ongJit to compel him- 
self; and, when he does so, that it is the effect of freedom : but not, when 
he is compelled. 



92 SOME VIEWS OP FREEDOM AND SLAVERY 

love is the spontaneous doing of good for goodness' sake, wliich 
is the result of divine regeneration. 

The service of wisdom or truth, \?, formal, and the service of 
love or good, is essential, freedom. For, as man obeys the 
precepts of wisdom, he comes into the experimental or vital 
understanding of truth, in consequence of putting aM'ay from 
his life all the evil of false principles; and thus is delivered 
from the bondage of sin, so as to become the Lord's, or " the 
Truth's," freeman, by spiritually constrained action. For all 
obedience of truth, which subjects man's selfish and worldly 
loves to the behests of celestial and spiritual love, is at first 
undelightful, because a cross to the natural man : yet still it 
is freedom; because, although a man is a slave when forced by 
others, he is most truly or formally free when he forces him- 
self.* This, therefore, is what we c^W forynal freedom; because 
truth is the /o7nn of all things that are in order, while good is 
the essence of all things that are in use. 

But the service of love is man's spontaneous action from the 
ruling end of doing good to others for their own sakes. So far 
as a man acts consistently from this end, he comes himself into 
the enjoyment and the living perception of the good which he 
seeks to do to others. In the delight of making others happy, 
he is most happy himself. Hence, in the love of good for its 
own sake is essential delight; and therefore essential freedom; 
for whatever is done with delight, or whatever produces delight 
in the doing it, is most freely done — the essence of freedom 
being the happiness of delightful emotions with their calm and 
peaceful content. 

On the other hand, " in the love of evil is [essential] servi- 
tude; " and the essence of slavery is the misery of undelightful 
emotions with their restless discontent. For the love of evil, 
that is, the love of self and the world as a final end of action, 
constantly tends, in its activity, to injure others, instead of doing 
them good. Thus it runs counter to all the laws of the divine 
economy. Consequently, it is perpetually subject to the coun- 
teraction of those laws. In short, the universal law of the 
divine economy is, that evil shall react upon itself for its own 
correction. So that, whenever evil goes forth in any of its 
corresponding activities, it comes, more or less immediately, 
into bonds : while, nevertheless, the yearnings of its infernal 
desires arc increased in the ratio of the restraining weights 
which are made to impend upon them — as smothered fires burn 
with a more intense heat. All a man who is actuated by evil 
love docs, is attended with misery, in order that his action from 
* See the references in the second note on the preceding page. 



IN THE LIGHT 0¥ THE NEW JERUSALEM. 93 

that love may be restrained. Hence, in action from that love, 
there is the veriest servitude or slavery. For, as that which a 
man does with delight is free; so that which a man does with 
misery is constrained. There is, indeed, an infernal delight at 
first in the commission of evil; but it is invariably followed by 
corresponding misery in the reactions upon it. The activities 
of an evil love gnaw as a deathless worm, and burn as a 
quenchless fire. Constantly urged to work, and yet flogged as 
with scorpions when he has worked, the man of evil passions is 
subjected to the most galling task, and the most relentless task- 
master. The activities of evil love produce, in the substance of 
the human soul, or in man's spiritual body, a sort of cancerous 
diathesis, which breaks out in " putrefying sores. ^' (Isa., i, 6.) 
The delights of this evil love are as the itching of these cancer- 
ous sores, and as the pleasure felt in their friction. But the 
pain which follows such friction, and the increased cancerous 
action consequent on the greater afilux of blood and nervous 
fluid to the part, emblem too truly the bondage and burden of 
sin. And so it is that " in the love of evil there is servitude.'' 

And they who are in such servitude can never come into 
good, so as to feel delight in doing it purely for its own sake : 
thus cannot enter into heaven, which consists in that delight, 
and which is open to those only who are in divine truth by obe- 
dience to its precepts. And so it is that '' the servant of sin 
abideth not in the house for ever.'^ The house here mentioned, is 
that " building of God, not made with hands,'^ which is '' eternal 
in the heavens. '^ It is that body of external goodness with 
which the reformed and regenerated soul is " clothed upon '' as 
it " shifts this mortal coil.'' The servitude of sin is compelled 
action from the ends of selfish and worldly loves. In this 
action, these loves put on the external semblances of even 
spiritual and celestial goodness, to promote their interests or 
suit their sinister purposes. But, as " there is nothing covered 
which shall not be revealed, nor hid which shall not be known,'' 
these merely skin-deep semblances of external goodness will, 
in the developments of the eternal world, be put off from those 
loves, and they will come into and abide in such external evils 
as correspond to their infernal desires. And so will it be fully 
proved that " the servant of sin abideth not in the house for 
ever." 

But " the son abideth for ever." For the son is " the way, 
the truth and the life;" and ''no man cometh unto the father 
but by the son." The son is '' the truth," because truth 13 tiio 
first and only begotten of good as its father; and is the bright- 
ness of its glory and the express image of its substance; just 



94 SOME VIEWS OP FREEDOM AND SLAVERY 

as light is the first and only begotten son, the brightness, the 
glory, and the express image of heat. And as light conveys 
heat and develops it in the earth, so truth conveys good and 
develops it in the soul. Nor can genuine good be developed in 
homogeneous external goodness by any other means than the 
practice of the truth which flows from and corresponds to it. 
But when love to God, and love to the neighbor, are implanted 
ill the human soul, by divine reformation and regeneration, and 
truth, proceeding as a son from those loves, and bearing them 
as heat in its bosom, is so out-born as to become flesh in man's 
conduct, then the external structure of goodness which the truth 
thus becomes in this out-being or out-formation of itself, is the 
wise man's founding of his house, which, when ^' the rain 
descends, and the floods come, and the winds blow, and beat 
upon it, falls not, because it is founded on a rock.'' The truth 
for ever abides in the good which it efi'ects. And so '' the son 
abideth for ever.'' 

"If the son, therefore, shall make you free, ye shall he free 
indeed." For, if the truth of good release you from the bond- 
age of sin, it will most efi'ectualiy and most abidingly open in 
your soul that gushing and perennial fountain of love, which 
will carry you most spontaneously along to the doing of good 
for goodness' sake. In this passage of the Word, the son means 
the Lord as to his divine truth. The son also means the divine 
truth which proceeds from him and is himself derivativel}'. 
As we have seen above, the house in which this son abides for 
ever, is the good which it incessantly efi'ects. The thought of 
the mind dwells constantly on and in what the man loves to 
do. The thought, flowing from the will and afi'cction of the 
love, brings them out into corresponding form and activity in 
the speech and action. And in the speech and action which 
correspond to it, the cud or purpose of the love finds a funda- 
ment, continent and resting place, so as to give to the love 
therein ''a local habitation and a name." It was thus that the 
divine love, in the Lord's glorification of his humanity, found 
a thorough outbirth and permanent abode. And it is ever thus 
that the divine truth from him, flowing by reformation and 
regeneration into the souls of men, causes them to abide in the 
good that corresponds to it. For none can pluck out of his 
father's hands, them whom the father giveth to the son. No 
evil or falsity can cause them to swerve from the rectitude of 
divine truth, who have, in the potency of that truth, brought 
the good from whence it flows, correspondently out into ultimate 
life. For thus good by truth is founded on " the Hock of Ages." 
And hence^ as the son's abiding for ever is the same as evil's being 



IN THE LIGHT OF THE NEW JERUSALEM. 95 

finally removed from, and good's being brought into, ultimate 
life, and fixed there by constant action from the love of doing 
good for goodness' sake ; and as action from love is in consum- 
mate freedom; it is said, ♦' tlicrefore^ if the &on shall make you 
free, ye shall be/;'ce indeed.^' The ground of this reasoning 
is, that the divine truth is the law of divine order — the grand 
complex formula by which the problems of divine love are in- 
cessantly solved — the all-sufficient means by which the ends of 
divine love are constantly effected. So that, whatever is done 
according to divine truth, and by its reforming efficiency, is 
most freely done, because such action flows in the easy proclivity 
of the current of iha divine providence, and never can be ob- 
structed or rippled by any counteraction from the laws of the 
divine economy. 

In explaining the portion of the Holy Word before us, our 
church teaches the following clear and satisfactory doctrine : 

" He who acts in any case from the affection which is of the love of good, 
acts from a free principle ; but he who acts from the affection which is of 
the love of evil, appears to act from a free principle, but in reality does not, 
because he acts from the lusts which flow in trom hell. He alone is free 
who is in the affection of good ; because he is led of the Lord. That free- 
dom consists in being led of the Lord, and servitude in being led of lusts 
wiiich are from hell," must be manifest to all spiritual discernment; "for 
the Lord implants atleclions in favor of what is good, and aversion to what 
is evil. Hence to do good is freedom, and to do evil is altogether servile. 
He who believes that christian liberty has a further extent, is very much 
deceived." (A. C. 9o9(3.) 

" When man's internal principle [or the spiritual manl conquers, as is 
the case when it has reduced the external [principle or the natural man] 
to agreement or compliance [with itself,] then man is endowed by the Lord 
with essential liberty and essential rationality ; for then man is rescued by 
the Lord from infernal liberty, which in itself is [the veriest] servitude, and 
is introduced into celestial liberty, which in itself is essential freedom, 
and has consociation granted him with the angels." (Ap. Ex. 409.) 

Thus the Lord teaches us by this text " that they are servants 
[or slaves] who are in sins; and that he makes those free who, 
by the Word, receive truth from him." Consequently, when 
the Jews, in reply to his saying, " Ye shall know the truth, and 
the truth shall make you free," '^ answered him. We are the 
seed of Abraham, and were never in bondage to any one; how 
sayest thou, Ye shall be made free ? " &c. 

• " By these words is understood, that freedom consists in being led of 

the Lord, and that servitude consists in being led of hell. By iruih ivhich 
makefsfree, is meant the divine truth which is from the Lord; for he who 
receives that truth in doctrine and in life is [indeed j free ; because he becomes 
spiritual, and is led of the Lord. Wherefore, also, it is said, that fhe son 
abileth in the house for ever, and if the son makes vou free, you shall be 
free indeed ,- where by the son is meant the Lord, and likewise truth ; and 
io abide in the house, denotes [to dwell] in heaven. That to be led of hell 
IS servitude, is taught by these words, every one who doeth sin is the servant 
vf sin; where sin denotes hell, because sin is from hell." (Ap. Ex. 409.) 



96 BOME VIEWS OF FREEDOM AND SLAVERY 

"All that is called freedom which is of the will— thus which is of the 
love; and hence it is that freedom manifests itself by the delijrht of will- 
ing and of thinkin? ; and hence of doing and of speaking ; for all delight is 
of love, and all love is of the will, and the will is the esse of the life of 
man." (A.C. 9585.) 

This is the reason that, in all contests for political liberty with 
arbitrary powers, the first and chief thing fought for, is liberty 
of speech and freedom of action; and this is the reason why 
despots, whenever they are enslaving a people, silence the press 
by their censorship, and impair freedom of speech and action by 
their fines and penalties. 

"To do evil from the delight of love, appears to be freedom; but it is 
servitude, because it is from hell. To do good from the delight of love, 
both appears to be and really is freedom, because it is from the Lord. Ser- 
vitude, therefore, consists in being led of hell, and freedom in being led of 
the Lord." (A. C. 85S6.) 

Such is the Lord's doctrine in this passage of his Holy 
Word, as interpreted by the true church. And how clearly 
does it teach us that, '' if the son make us free, we shall be 
free indeed " / 

To what has been advanced it may be added, that to do evil 
from the delight of the love of evil, appears to be freedom only 
to the mere natural man ; and to do good from the delight of 
the love of good, appears to be freedom only to the spiritual 
man. To the natural man, — especially the corporeal and sen- 
sual man, — the doing good from the delight of the love of it, 
seems preposterous ; and any obligation he may feel under to 
do it, seems to him a galling yoke and a fearful bondage. The 
Lord, who, as a divinely human form of spiritual truth, as " the 
way, the truth, and the life," imposes on him this task, seems 
to him a hard master — reaping where he has not sown, and 
gathering where he has not strewed. But if, in faith, he obeys 
the truth of God unto the entire renunciation of all action from 
every evil love, the Lord, by charity, or spiritual love, implants 
in him a spiritual affection for truth and goodness, and so 
lightens the burden which spiritual truth imposes on his natural 
man. And then he realizes the blessedness of the Lord's divine 
injunction and assurance — '^ Come unto me, all ye that labor 
and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke 
upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart; 
and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy 
and my burden is light.'' (Matt., xi, 28—30.) 



IN THE LIGHT OF THE NEW JERUSALEM. 97 



CHAPTER V. 

Practical Application of the Subject — A Recapitulation, setting 
forth, in a Varied Form of Presentation, the True Nature of 
Freedom and Slavery, exhibiting the Position of America in 
relation to the Countries of Europe, and indicating the Duties 
and Responsihilities of Americans, and especially of Members 
of the True Church, in preserving the Liberties of their own 
Country, and in promoting the Universal Political Good of 
all other Nations. 

Our subject is full-fraught with lessons of practical wisdom 
in respect to what it becomes us, as a nation, to know and to 
do, for the preservation of our own country's liberties, and for 
the universal political good of all other nations. It unfolds to 
us the nature of slavery in its essential or internal form, as an 
evil far more to be dreaded, and far more to be eschewed, than 
that external form of it which is now so much exciting the 
imaginary fears, and the spurious philanthropies, of outside 
patriots. In short, it unfolds to us the nature of slavery as the 
root and branch of all arbitrary power. And, in its wise mo- 
nitions, it points to duty the only pathway to our country's 
safety, our domestic peace and our individual happiness. Let 
us, then, in conclusion, make a practical improvement of the 
principles which have been set forth. 

Let us first contemplate the spectacle which our political 
birth-right presents. Let us consider its probable influence on 
the nations of the old world. Let us ponder well the obliga- 
tions which it imposes on us as Americans. And let us, at 
some length, and in a varied form of presentation, consider 
again, and more summarily, the true nature of freedom and 
slavery — to the end that we may see more clearly, and feel 
more strongly, our duty as Americans of the New Jerusalem. 

It is not three quarters of a century since political freedom 
had her birth-day in the broad and lovely expanse of this new- 
found world. A nation, conceived of God by a general judg- 
ment in the world of spirits, gestated in " times that tried 
men's souls,'' was brought forth in the feeblest infancy of poli- 
tical existence. The United States of America were declared 

9 



98 SOME VIEWS OF FREEDOM AND SLAVERY 

a free and independent nation. The prestige of greatness and 
of glory slione as a halo around the head of the new-born babe. 
The best of blood was in its veins. It owned the pedigree of 
virtuous and mighty sires. A scion of a great and glorious 
stock, transplanted to a more genial soil, was to grow with 
greater growth, flourish with new vigor, and fructify in a vastly 
greater development of all that pertains to and secures the best 
interests of mankind. 

The nations of Europe, stereotyped in the fixed forms of im- 
memorial usage, could not be reformed and regenerated with a 
political new-birth, without being broken up, melted over, and 
cast into a new mould. There was no space large enough, and 
free enough, in any general division of that old continent, to 
hold the mould of the NEW MxVN — that better, greater, 
grander form of political humanity, which God, in his mercy, 
designed and deigned to bring forth, and rear up, as the Atlas, 
upon whose shoulders was to be upborne all national existence, 
virtue and prosperity. A new continent, which the Lord had 
hid in the treasure-house of this western hemisphere, was, in 
the fullness of his times, discovered and brought forth. Here, 
where the towering Andes, Cordilleras and Kocky Mountains 
stretch, for nearly half the arc of a great circle, the huge back- 
bone of a mighty frame — here, where giant rivers hurl hercu- 
lean floods to bottomless oceans on every side — where lakes are 
seas like monstrous wild beasts caged in rocky barriers — where 
boundless prairies, like mantles studded with Flora's many- 
colored gems, are spread, as royal robes, over the shoulders of 
Nature, sitting queen and nursing mother of a countless progeny 
of nations — where vegetation springs up in gigantic growths — 
where trees grow higher and thicker, skies stretch wider, and 
every thing puts on the dimensions of greater magnitude, than 
any where else in the world — where, therefore, material repre- 
sentatives of new and true principles more abounded, and where 
less political weeding was to be done to make a fitting garden- 
spot for the celestial sproutings of a new heaven of truly good 
and goodly true christian men — here, and here alone, could the 
mould of a newer, truer and better humanity be formed for 
the recasting into better political shapes all the old nations of the 
world. In short, here alone could a mighty republic of con- 
federated nations present the adequate forms, magnitudes, sym- 
metries and perfections of a national maximns homo! 

And hither have the old world's migrating myriads come, 
like difieront kinds of food into a healthy political stomach, to 
be digested into the new and better conditions of improved 
bodies politic. And as these foreigners have died, and their 



IN THE LIGHT OF THE NEW JERUSALEM. 99' 

spirits have risen into the spiritual world, their reflex influence 
from the world of spirits, has put the leaven into the old world, 
so that the whole lump of european nations is undergoing a 
thorough fermentation, and the batch is rising into the new 
forms of regenerated political existence. The spirit of truth, 
flowing down, as hot water, through new arrangements of the 
spirits of men in the spiritual world, is cracking the painted and 
gilded porcelain forms of ancient political organization, or is 
slacking the calcined crystallizations of long fixed political 
elements, every where in the old world — so as, by various dis- 
integration, to fit them for new political combinations in this 
land of expanding intelligence and rational freedom. Here 
decrepit political humanity was to find a fulfilment of prophecy; 
and, " waiting upon the Lord,'^ was to " renew her strength,^' to 
'^ mount up with wings as caglesj'''^ to " run and not be weary," 
and to ^^ walk and not faint/' 

And the infant form of this now adult mighty model for all 
other nations, was ushered into life, with excruciating parturient 
pains, only about seventy-four years ago. Not more than a 
century and a quarter has elapsed since the buds first swelled 
on our tree of liberty. An area of civil freedom was spread 
here in America, as a needful plain for a fuller development of 
that spiritual freedom which consists in the deliverance of the 
spirits of all mankind from the thraldom of sin. And now the 
New Jerusalem, or the true christian church, descends from 
God out of heaven, as an angel of light, to show us the obliga- 
tions we are under, to preserve this freedom in its purity, for 
the welfare of our own and of all other nations ! 

Let us, then, not turn our backs on her. It becomes us — it 
is our duty — in practical reflection upon vrhat has been ad- 
vanced, to consider again what is the nature of true freedom, 
so that our souls may more fully imbibe its spirit and its life, 
and impart to our country and to mankind the saving eflficacy 
of its healthful influences : while we, at the same time, scruti- 
nize more particularly the true nature of that internal slavery 
which we have seen is an evil so much to be dreaded and avoided; 
so that we may practically discern its essence and its source, 
and, by seeing in ourselves, individually, the root of all arbi- 
trary power, that root of bitterness, we may effectually pluck 

* It is believed that the standards, fla^s, or armorial bearings of nations 
correspond in some way to their distinctive internal characters, and mark 
their peculiar places, so to speak, in the grand man of this lower world. 
And the eagle, with the stars and the stripes, is supposed to indicate that 
Americans of the United States are to be a highly rational people— charac- 
terized by acute, penetrating and soaring intellect, supereminent know- 
ledge, indomitable enterprise, untiring energy, and critical acumen. 



100 SOME VIEWS or FREEDOM AND SLAVERY 

it up from our own bosoms, and cast it from us; and thus do 
all we can to save our country and all men from its fatal 
sproutings. 

What, then, do we learn, or have we learned, from the 
teachings of God's Word, and the doctrines of his church, as 
to the true idea of freedom and slavery ? 

If there is any one word which expresses the true idea of 
freedom, it is equilihrium. The common notion is, that a man 
is free when he has the power and liberty to do what he likes. 
This, indeed, as our lesson has taught us, is natural freedom. 
For action is free when it is according to the ruling love. 
"What a man loves to do, that he does with delight; and when 
one is allowed to do what is delightful to him without any hin- 
drance, his life seems to him unconstrained, and therefore free. 
Hence all freedom must have a quality according to the cha- 
racter of the love from which it springs. And thus natural 
freedom, being the unrestrained activity of natural love, takes 
its quality, its form and its hue from natural love. But natural 
love is the love of self, or the love of dominion over others from 
the love of self; with the love of wealth as the means of ob- 
taining it. And the unrestrained activity of domineering self- 
love among men, would be the liberty to bring all men into 
subjection to one man, and the power and right to appropriate 
and possess all their property. And this, it is easy to see, 
would be universal slavery. For, when one man had subjected 
all other men to his sway, they would be all slaves to him; and 
he would be the greatest slave of them all, because he would 
be a slave to himself: for no man is so much a slave as he who 
cannot act contrary to his own natural passions. 

To love oneself above all things, and to act invariably with 
a view to one's own gratification, is essential sin. For sin is 
contrariety to divine order; and the order in which God creates 
man is to love others as well as or better than himself, and to 
find his happiness in all those acts of good use to other men by 
which he makes them happy. Hence the essence of sin is to 
act against the love of others and the love of promoting the 
common good. Thus self-love, which is active in the love of 
dominion, and seeks its own gratification in subjecting all other 
men to itself, is essential sin. And the servant of this sin is 
the essential slave. AVe have thus arrived at a point from 
which we clearly see the true nature of slavery, and discern its 
essence and its source. 

Hence comes the disposition to have and to exercise all arbi- 
trary power. ThiS; iu the individual man, makes him self- 



IX THE LIGHT OF THE NEW JERUSALEM. 101 

willed or determined to have his own way, dictatorial and over- 
bearing in his conduct to others, and most cruel in his treat- 
ment of them, if they in any way thwart him in the attainment 
of his ends, or do not prove subsequient and subservient to him 
in the gratification of his desires. It is the bane of married 
life, poisoning all its felicity by contentions between the hus- 
band and the wife for rule. The peace of the domestic circle 
is perpetually disturbed, by its intestine wars, until one or the 
other party submits; which he or she some times does for the 
sake of peace. It is the universal cause of political slavery. 
The lust of rule has, in all times and in all places, marred the 
harmony, disturbed the peace, and destroyed the integrity of 
nations. It leads the politician to fawn and flatter the people, 
until, wafted by the breath of popular favor to the pinnacles of 
chief power, he can exercise dominion over them and enact the 
tyrant. It leads the people themselves to the worst of all 
tyrannies, when they substitute their blind will for the law 
which is divine justice. ^' He,'^ says the doctrine of our church, 
" who regards himself as above the law, places royalty in him- 
self, and either believes himself to be the law, or the law, which 
is justice, to be derived from himself. Hence he arrogates to 
himself that which is divine — to which, nevertheless, he ought 
to be in subjection.'^ And '^ the king who lives according to 
the law, and therein sets an example to his subjects, is truly a 
king.'' But " a king who has absolute power, and believes 
that his subjects are such slaves that he has a right to their 
possessions and lives, and exercises such a right, is not a king, 
but a tyrant." 

Such is the doctrine of our church in regard to tyranny — ex- 
pressed, indeed, in respect to kingly government; but involv- 
ing the principle of tyranny in respect to all governments, even 
that of a republic, or democracy, in which the people, as a vast 
collective man, are regarded as the sovereign, exercising a sort 
of self-government. And hence we see that the essence of 
tyranny consists in putting selfish will above just law, and in 
making the will of man the source of government instead of the 
justice of God. So that, when the mere will of the people, in 
the form and organization of any collective man, is put above 
the law, or is regarded as the law, or is deemed the source from 
whence the law is derived, there is the greatest and most per- 
fect tyranny, because it is the tyranny of a vast collective man, 
instead of that of an individual man. Hence the outbursts of 
popular will, not only in the various forms of mobile violence, 
but also in the bearing down of capricious public opinion, are 
often the most detestable exercises of arbitrary power, and 



102 SOME VIEWS OF FREEDOM AND SLAVERY 

present the very worst form of that despotism which springs 
from the sway of unbridled self-love. 

The same principle leads nations to all those acts of aggres- 
sion by which one is subjected to the power of another, and 
those who exercise power in each, can have the means of exert- 
ing arbitrary sway over those who are dependent on them. 
AVe all know, or have been informed, how the lust of dominion 
from the love of self impelled the mother country to oppress 
her cis-atlantic colonies — to aggrandize herself at their expense 
— to tax them against their Avill and without fair representation 
in a legislature of their own — and most oppressively to burden 
them by the unjust exactions of arbitrary and mercenary go- 
vernors. And we well know how the reactions of a free spirit 
upon these oppressions of the mother country, roused our fore- 
fathers to the war of our revolution, nerved them to maintain 
it, for eight long years, by the most inadequate means, against 
the best appointed forces, and enabled them to wade through 
fire and blood to that consummation of a free, prosperous, great 
and happy political existence which it is now our blest privilege 
to enjoy ! 

We see, then, what true freedom is, by discerning most clearly 
what it is not. The liberty of the natural man to do as he 
pleases, is not true freedom. It is the quintessence of slavery. 
For, as we have now seen, it is the liberty of the selfish man to 
make all who are within his power subservient to himself: the 
upshot of which is, that all become slaves to him, and he 
becomes slave to himself, because he has no power, in the free 
volitions, or in the equilibrations of a rational mind, to control 
the burstings forth of his own ungovernable passions — which, 
however suppressed by external restraints, such as the fears of 
the loss of life, of honor, of wealth, or of power, are but the 
pent fires of a furious volcano, that ever and anon break forth 
in burning and desolating lavas ! '' Whosoever committeth sin, 
is the servant of sin.^' 

On the other hand, the best and truest teacher assures us — 
'' If the son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.'' 
Our church has taught us, in what is gone before, that the son 
is that divine truth which is the form, the efiigy, the signet of 
essential goodness. And when the Lord purifies the human soul, 
as *^ silver is tried,'' or purged of its dross, in the crucible of this 
truth and the furnace of his love, and then stamps on its substance 
the form of this truth as the seal of his love, he most thoroughly 
fuses all the infernal chains with which the devil and satan had 
bound it, and sets it free in entire celestial enfranchisement! 
For truth, as the son of love, imparts its father's image and 



IN THE LIGHT OF THE NEW JERUSALEM. 103 

likeness to all whom it conceives in charity, and, by faith, brings 
forth in good works. For it is the brightness of the glory of 
love — that love which delights in doing good to others simply 
with a view to their happiness, and without selfish regard to 
any recompense. It is the form of that order which ensues 
when the wild impulses of the natural or selfish man without, 
are brought into subjection to the clear rational dictates of the 
spiritual man within. It is that order which ensues when a 
man, from the end to good in the adytum of his soul, can stand 
firm on the clear mountain top of rational conviction of duty, 
and, while he sees the gust of natural passion, rolling in dense 
and black vapors, flashing and thundering and rending all 
below, can determine to do what is right because it is right, 
and can bow down and serve the common good, even at the 
severest sacrifice of all the natural heart holds most dear, be- 
cause the common good is and should be paramount to all indi- 
vidual interests. In short, it is the order and freedom of a 
icell-halanced mind. 

Thus- the essence of freedom consists in the exact balancing 
of the natural man below by the spiritual man above. True 
freedom, therefore, is equilibrium. It is a state in the body 
politic like to sound health in the physical body. For, in 
health, every part of the body is nicely balanced, in a perfectly 
just and adequate reaction of the external limits upon the in- 
ternal energies. The pulse, which is the index of the body's 
health, is regular. Whenever the pulse is too fast or too slow, 
too strong or too feeble, it is a sure symptom of disease. And 
the basis of that health of the body which consists in the equi- 
librium of all its parts, is the great law that each part acts in 
its respective province for the good of the whole and not for its 
own gratification. Thus the eye sees — the ear hears — the nose 
smells — the tongue tastes — the hands procure and convey food, 
and the legs hold up the body or make it locomotive, each and 
all, for the good of the whole, and not for their own gratifica- 
tion. Each is sustained by the commonwealth, and is made 
happy from the common stock of happiness. Whenever any 
jiart begins, as it were, to think of and act for itself, that in- 
stant the equilibrium of the other parts is disturbed, and disease 
commences. Thus, for instance, when the bones, which, in 
health, have little or no feeling in them, become inflamed, they 
are exquisitely painful, and, by drawing an undue sympathy 
from the other parts, taking the blood from the heart, and the 
nervous energy from the brain, which should be given and ex- 
erted for the common good, and concentering them upon them- 
selves, they lay the whole body prostrate on the bed of sick- 



104 SOME VIEWS OF FREEDOM AND SLAVERY 

ness. So of the eye, when it is inflamed, and there is an undue 
congestion of blood in it, the whole equilibrium of the body is 
destroyed, and every other member, and the body as a "whole, 
is powerless in its united and harmonious action for the common 
good. In short, the body is no longer free, when the self-love 
of any of its parts destroys the equilibrium which should reign 
in all its parts. And so it is that self-love is essentially de- 
structive of all freedom : and, we may add, of all true federal 
union among independent states.* 

If, therefore, we would be free indeed, either as individuals 
or as a nation, we must extract this root of bitterness from our 
souls, our minds and all our conduct. The mathematical axiom, 
that the whole is equal to the sum of its parts, applies to our 
country. Such as is the character of the individual men or 
states who compose it, such will be the character and quality 
of the whole country. Its common wealth is the aggregate of 
its individual wealths. Its common virtue is the aggregate of its 
individual virtues. Its common power, prosperity and happi- 
ness, depend solely upon the intelligence, the virtue and the 
true patriotism of its component parts. In view, then, of our 
country's freedom, greatness and true glory, the great lesson 
we have to learn, the great duty we have to do, is the careful 
heeding, by each one, of the wise monition " Physician, heal 
thyself!" 

No people can ever be oppressed by tyrants who are not 
themselves individually influenced by the principle of tyranny. 
All arbitrary or bad government is salutary reaction upon the 
evils of the governed; and the only efi"ectual way to get rid of 
the bad government is for the governed, each from himself, to 
remove the evils on which it is permitted to react. 

Americans, as a people, never can be enslaved, while they 
are individually free ! This grand truth applies as well to the 
individual states in our great confederacy as to the individual 
men in our groat nation. If each state is itself free from all 
injustice in its individual polity, and, like some particular mem- 
ber of the human body, acts for the common good of all the 
states in the healthy equilibrium of a well-balanced deference 
and subordination of its partial to their general interests, it is 
impossible that any one state can ever be oppressed by the rest, 
or ever domineer over them : but, if any state makes slaves of 
any portion of the human race, it need not be confounded, if, 
in the permissive dispensations of Divine Providence, it should 

• Sco a Now Year's Sermon, l)y the author of these Views, entitled, 
"T le True Nature ol National Union and Prosperity," which maybe had 
or E. Fcrictt Hi. Co., iikb Chestnut street, Philudelphia. 



IN THE LIGHT OF THE NEW JERUSALEM. 105 

itself become the slave of some master, for the correction of its 
evil. 

The only thing that can ever impair the freedom of the col- 
lective as of the individual man, is some one of its component 
parts preferring and seeking its own interest at the expense of 
the common good. Therefore, in all civil and political sick- 
ness, the grand maxim, in reforming abuses, is, '^ Physician, 
heal thyself ! '' Especially, Heal thyself, American People ! 
Let each and every one put away his oicn j^c^'tictdar evUs as 
sins against the common good! If every individual or collec- 
tive American acts on this principle, so as to deny himself, take 
up his cross daily, and follow the Great Physician of Souls in 
laying down his life for the brethren^ then our beloved country 
cannot tiiil to be every thing one would wish her to be — pros- 
perous, great and happy ! 

This, then, is true patriotism. In this age, when almost 
every thing is got up for the people, here \s patriotism for the 
people, in contradistinction to the patriotism of their rulers or 
servants. It is the best sort of patriotism for the servants too — 
the patriotism of self-sacrifice. It is not confined to the tented 
field, the post of high honor, the arena of glory, of danger, or 
of death. The secluded and quiet shades of domestic life are 
its theatre as well as the halls of legislation or the plains of 
executive power. This is patriotism for the female as well as 
the male — in which she can excel, and rise preeminent in glory. 
For, whether she be daughter, sister, wife, or mother, she can, 
not only sacrifice herself for the best good of her country, but 
also infuse the spirit of self-sacrifice, in its purest forms, into 
men of every degree. The woman gives man his material body 
in the sacrifice of herself, and she may infuse spirit and life into 
his spiritual body by similar means. How much do we owe 
our love of country to our mothers ! How manifestly did the 
mother of Washington infuse into him his patriotism ! And 
every true woman and good mother can make a patriot of her 
son, by teaching him the lessons, and early inuring him to the 
duties, of self-sacrifice. She may not prove her love of country 
by pouring out her physical blood in gathering encrimsoned 
laurels on the field of earthly fame; but she can more fully 
prove it by co-working with the spirit of God, in silence and in 
secret, when he curiously fashions, in the lower parts of the 
earth, all the members of the human soul into the image and 
likeness of his own self-denying virtues, by the innocence of 
infancy and the noble impulses and the generous fellow-feelings 
of youth ! 

Yes, true patriotism is self-denial — is self-sacrifice ! This is 



106 SOME VIEWS OF FREEDOM AND SLAVERY 

true devotion. This is that sacrifice of our own lives — that 
pouring out of our own blood — that giving of our own treasure 
— by which our beloved country will be most effectually served 
and secured in all her best and dearest and most lasting inte- 
rests ! Yes, in whatever time, place, circumstance, or duty — 
when the altar is set for the sacrifice to be bound with cords to 
its horns — the wood to be set in order upon it — and we have 
come to invoke the fire from heaven that is to kindle it, and to 
offer up the incense of our holy worship at the shrine of our 
country's good — the sacrifice we are to make is the sacrifice of 
ourselves — the incense we are to offer is the burning odor 
of broken and contrite hearts — the offering we are to heave is 
the faithful discharge of every known duty, in public or private 
life, from a supreme regard to God and our neighbor, which is 
the seeking, in all things, to promote the common interest by 
the surrendering or subordinating thereto of every and all par- 
tial and individual interests. This is that straight gate — this 
that narrow way — through which it becomes us to enter, and 
in which it behooves us consistently and perseveringly to walk, 
however few there may be found going in thereat. For the 
sure foundations of a nation's glory, and honor, and safety, are 
the vital principles of the true church. And it is only in the 
genuine patriotism of her members, that there can be any 
guarantee for our country's security from the danger that seems 
to impend over her through that wide gate and broad way of 
self-seeking and self-serving at and in which so very many are 
now entering and rushing to her destruction ! 

Finally, Freedom is the child of God, the heir of his virtues 
and his felicities, but apparently helpless and incapable of 
coming into its legitimate inheritance, unless nursed by heaven, 
trained by order, practised by wisdom, and perfected by love. 
The Lord, in his infinite mercy, has given freedom to our 
country as a plain and ground-work for our church. For civil 
freedom must precede spiritual freedom, as the earth must bo 
formed before man can live and do good upon it. Civil free- 
dom is the silk-worm, in which lie latent moral and spiritual 
freedom as the crysalis and the butterfly. Civil freedom is the 
common air, in which moral freedom and spiritual freedom lie 
unseen, or gradually come, or work unobserved, as the electric 
and magnetic fluids. And it is the duty and the privilege of 
the church, as a heart and lungs, to give the life of heaven to 
the body politic. 

We are, then, incessantly to make a new declaration of in- 
dependence. In every celebration of our country's birth day, 
we are to give forth a practical commemoration of the principles 



IN THE LIGHT OF THE NEW JERUSALEM. 107 

involved and luminous in the true american freedom which was 
then declared. As our honored fathers declared themselves 
free from the sway of despotic natural dominion, and achieved 
and maintained their independence at every natural sacrifice; 
so must we declare ourselves free from the sway of despotic 
spiritual dominion, and achieve and maintain our independence 
of that, at every spiritual sacrifice. We must vitally declare 
our independence of all that " sin which doth most easily beset 
us,'' and, by holding in bondage our true spiritual man, makes 
us slaves indeed! 

Let us, therefore, while we thank the Lord for giving us this 
natural plain to stand and work on, fail not to work manfully 
in securing all that exemption from sin — from selfishness — from 
worldlimindedness — in ourselves as members of the truly free 
church, which may prove a savor of life to our countrymen 
around us, however much the general mass of them may be 
immersed in those unheavenly principles — as the ten righteous 
men, still found in Sodom, sufl&ced, for a time, to ward ofi" that 
devoted city's impending ruin. And, while we set our faces 
against all mob-law and mobile violence — while we resolutely 
oppose that freedom which consists in the natural man's license 
to do as he pleases, and is licentiousness — while we cease not 
to condemn all that partizan politics which undermines the con- 
stitution of our country by making the common good secondary 
to private interests — let us so practise ourselves, and so disse- 
minate among our countrymen, the heavenly principles of our 
Holy Jerusalem, that all the world may be enabled to exclaim, 
in respect to our beloved country, " Happy is that people who 
are in such a case ! Yea, happy is that people, whose God is 
the Lord!" (Ps. cxix, 15.) 



Extracts from Swedenborg's larger work entitled Arcana Ccelcsiia. 

" Genesis, xviii, 32. — ' Peradventure ten be found there ' — that hereby 
is signified, if there should still be remains, appeal's from the significa- 
tion of the number ten, as denoting remains. * "* By remains, arc 
meant every good and every truth, with man, which lies concealed in 
his memories and in his life. It is a known thing, that there is nothing 
good and there is nothing true but what is from the Lord ; also, that 
good and truth continually flow in from the Lord with man; but that 
the influx is received variously, and this according to the life of evil and 
according to the pi'inciples of falsity in which man has confirmed him- 
self: these are the things which either extinguish, or suffocate, or per- 
vert goodnesses and truths continually flowing in from the Loi'd. To 
prevent, therefore, the mixture of what is good with what is evil, and 
of what is true with what is false, — for, in case of such mixture, man 
would perish eternally, — the Lord separates them, and conceals the 
goodnesses and truths, Yfhich man receives, in his interior man; whence 



108 EXTRACTS FROM ARCANA CCELESTIA. 

the Lord -will never allow them to come forth, so long as man is in evil 
and falsity, but only -when he is in some kind of lioly state, or in some 
kind of anxiety of mind, or in sickness, and the like. These things, 
■which the Lord thus treasures up and conceals with man, are what arc 
called remains ; whereof much mention is made in the "Word ; but, here- 
tofore, it has remained unknown to any what they signified. Man, 
according to the quality and quantity of remains, tliat is, of goodness 
and truth appertaining to him, enjoys bliss and happiness in another 
life; for, as was said, tliey arc treasured up and concealed in his inner 
man, and are then manifested, when man puts off corporeal and worldly 
things. The Lord alone is acquainted with the quality and quantitj' of 
remains with man, and man can in no wise know this; for man, at this 
day, is such, that he can put on a semblance of what is good, when yet, 
iuAvardly, there is nothing but evil: and, also, man may appear as evil, 
when yet, inwardl}', he possesses good: wherefore, it is on no account 
allowable for one man to judge of another as to the quality of his spi- 
ritual life; for, as was said, the Lord alone knows this: nevertheless, 
it is allowable for every one to judge of another, in respect to his quality 
as to moral and civil life; for this is of concern to society. It is a very 
common thing, with those who have conceived an opinion respecting 
any truth of faith, to judge of others, that they cannot be saved but by 
believing as they do — which, nevertheless, the Loi'd forbids. Matt., vii, 
1, 2. Accordingly, it has been made known to me, by much experi- 
ence, that persons of every religion are saved, if so be, by a life of cha- 
rity, they have received remains of good and of apparent truth. These 
are the things meant by what is here said, that, if ten be found, they 
should not be destroyed for ten's sake; whereby is signified, if there 
were remains, that they should be saved. The life of charity consists in 
man's thinking well of others, and desiring good to others, and per- 
ceiving joy in himself at the salvation of others; whereas, thoy have 
not the life of charity, who are not willing that any should be saved but 
such as believe as they themselves do, and especially if they are indig- 
nant that it should be otherwise. This may appear from this single 
circumstance, that more are saved from amongst the Gentiles, than from 
amongst the Christians: for such of the Gentiles as have thought well 
of their neighbor, and lived in good will to him, receive the truths of 
faith in another life better than they who are called Christians, and 
acknowledge the Lord more gladly than Christians do; for nothing is 
more dcligiitful and happy to the angels, than to instruct those "who 
come from earth into another life." 2284. 

" Christians who have acknowledged the tniths of faith, and, at the 
pame time, have led a life of good, are accepted in preference to the 
Gentiles; but such Christians, at this da}', arc few in number; whereas 
tlie Gentiles who have lived in obedience and mutual charity, are 
accepted in preference to the Christians who have not led a good life. 
For all persons, throughout every globe of earth in the universe, are 
accepted and saved by the mercy of the Lord, who have lived in good — 
good being the very essential principle which receives truth, and the 
good of life being the very ground of the seed, that is, of truth, which 
evil of life is incapable of receiving." 25'JO. 

" There are certain Gentiles from those countries where they arc 
black, who . . . said that, when they arc treated harshly, they are then 
black; but tliat, atterwards, they put olf their blackness, and put on 
wliiteness — knowing that their souls are white, but their bodies black " 
2GU3. 



